LIBRARY 

University  oi 

California 

Irvine 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

IRVINE 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

Fred  Ventura  Stewart 


OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


BY 
E.    B.  DEWING 


0 


THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1909 

Att  rights  reserved 


PS 


OS 


COPYRIGHT,   1909, 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1909. 


NorSsoofc  $r«8 

J.  8.  Cashing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


When  the  Soul  of  Man  does  battle  with  the  Forces  of  Nature, 
it  is  the  Forces  of  Nature  which  are  deathless. 

—  EGYPTIAN  PBOVEEB. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     THE  GIRDLE  OF  VENUS 1 

II.    THE  CUCKOO     . 22 

III.  VENUS  ANADYOMENE 43 

IV.  CELEBRITY 67 

V.     ANTICLIMAXES 90 

VI.     JANE 112 

VII.     NATURE 139 

VIII.       L'lMAGINATION    SENTIMENTALE 158 

IX.     THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN 182 

X.     MOTHER  AND  SON 206 

XL     IN  THE  MIDST  OF  BATTLE 223 

XII.  CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF  WINES    ....  246 

XIII.  LAUS  VENERIS 272 

XIV.  WEDDING-CAKE 302 

XV.    LA  BELLE  FRANCE 322 

XVI.  DUST  AND  LIGHT                                                               ,  343 


OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  GIRDLE   OF  VENUS 


"VENUS,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  deities  of  the 
ancients,  the  goddess  of  love  and  beauty.  In  the  Iliad 
she  is  presented  as  the  daughter  of  Jupiter  and  Dione 
and  in  later  traditions  as  the  daughter  of  Euonyme 
and  Cronos,  but  the  legend  of  Venus  sprung  from  the 
froth  of  the  sea  is  the  most  known.  She  arose  from 
the  sea  near  the  island  of  Cyprus,  or,  according  to 
Hesiod,  of  Cythera,  whither  she  was  wafted  by  the 
zephyrs,  and  received  on  the  seashore  by  the  seasons, 
daughters  of  Jupiter  and  Themis.  She  surpassed  all 
the  goddesses  in  beauty,  and  likewise  had  the  power 
of  granting  beauty  and  invincible  charm  to  others.  She 
was  the  owner  of  a  celebrated  girdle  which  when  worn 
even  by  the  most  deformed  excited  love  and  rekindled 
extinguished  flames.  .  .  ." 

Emily  Stedman  closed  her  book.    She  was  conscious 

B  1 


2  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

of  a  fixed  glare  from  the  spectacles  of  the  librarian's 
assistant.  Their  possessor  had  evidently  given  them 
an  added  polish;  and  it  behooved  her  to  treat  them 
well,  for  without  them  she  would  have  been  a  meek 
young  woman  enough.  With  them  she  struck  terror 
into  the  hearts  of  her  beholders.  That  may  have  been 
her  purpose  —  the  savage  custom  of  decorating  the  body 
with  bright  paints  and  feathers  is  often  attributed  to 
a  similar  one.  Miss  Smith  would  have  denied  the  par 
allel;  but  Miss  Smith  led  a  life  of  denials,  she  was 
the  assistant  librarian  at  Hornmouth.  And  Emily  Sted- 
man  was  the  only  daughter  of  Hornmouth's  most  cherished 
professor. 

She  sat  very  still.  She  could  hear  the  scratching  pen 
of  the  young  man  next  to  her  and  the  slow,  even  ticking 
of  the  clock.  She  gazed  a  little  longingly  at  the  ponderous 
volume  before  her.  She  couldn't  carry  on  her  highly  im 
portant  researches  in  the  presence  of  the  spectacles.  "Ve 
nus  sprung  from  the  froth  of  the  sea.  ..."  What  had 
Miss  Smith  to  do  with  Venus?  .  .  .  Minerva,  rather! 
As  she  sat  at  her  neat  desk,  pen  poised  in  air,  cataloguing, 
labelling,  the  wisdom  of  the  ages  must  have  passed  through 
her  arranging  hands.  Emily  Stedman  envied  Miss  Sniith 
in  the  same  moment  that  she  despised  her.  She  envied 
her  her  community  with  the  wisdom  of  the  ages ;  she  de 
spised  her  for  the  little  use  she  made  of  it.  If  she  herself 
were  strong  and  old,  —  if  she  herself  were  the  assistant 
librarian  at  Hornmouth,  —  the  wisdom  of  the  ages  would 
be  something  more  to  her  than  a  mere  dry  mass  of  printed 
paper ;  it  would  be  part  of  herself.  Wisdom  was  the  knowl- 


THE  GIRDLE  OF  VENUS  3 

edge  of  the  minds  of  men ;  and  she  with  the  knowledge  of 
the  minds  of  men  —  her  vision  was  of  great  power  and  of 
great  glory,  and  the  books  in  the  Hornmouth  library  seemed 
to  her  like  living  things. 

But  she  never  could  be  even  an  assistant  librarian. 
Wisdom,  save  for  an  occasional  ecstatic  licking  of  the 
plate,  was  the  thing  most  forbidden  her.  Born  into  a 
fraternity  of  scholars,  the  joys  of  scholarship  could  never 
be  hers.  There  had  been  too  many  scholars  already  — 
too  many  bent  shoulders  and  strained  eyes ;  the  learned 
blood  was  running  thin.  That  she  lived  at  all  was  a 
triumph  of  mind  over  matter ;  and  she  had  a  mind,  even 
at  the  age  of  fourteen.  For  many  generations  the  learned 
mind  had  been  developed  at  the  expense  of  the  learned 
body. 

She  looked  a  little  longingly  at  the  closed  book  on  the 
table  before  her  —  and  then  her  regard  wandered  to  the 
statue  in  the  corner.  This  statue  presented  the  goddess 
of  love  as  a  naked  and  armless,  but  nevertheless  dignified, 
woman  —  smoothly  made  —  who  gazed  out  at  a  mutable 
world  with  a  slow,  ruminating  expression  almost  bovine. 
She  hadn't  sprung  from  anything  —  surely  not  from  the 
froth  of  the  sea.  Beautiful,  but  too  calm,  too  passive. 
Emily's  ideal  of  Venus  was  the  reverse  of  passive.  She 
saw  her,  rather,  as  a  splendid,  victorious  figure  —  vital 
-  restless  —  a  Bellona  with  dishevelled  hair  and  a  flam 
ing  torch,  standing  in  the  midst  of  a  stormy  ocean,  her 
mouth  opened  round  in  a  great  shout.  For  a  young  lady 
who  cared  so  much  for  wisdom,  Miss  Stedman  had  a  won 
derful  fondness  for  war.  When  she  lay  awake  at  night, 


4  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

the  shadows  cast  by  her  flickering  candle  were  men  fight 
ing,  and  the  various  night  noises,  the  crickets  and  the 
locusts  and  the  rustling  wind,  were  the  tramp  of  marching 
feet.  But  war  was  also  outside  her  reach,  —  war  and 
wisdom,  —  and  now  there  was  something  else.  She 
looked  at  the  statue  in  the  corner.  She  couldn't  have 
worn  the  girdle  of  Venus  even  if  she'd  had  it;  it  would 
have  been  far  too  large.  Venus  was  smoothly  made; 
Emily,  in  later  years,  when  she  developed  a  talent  for  epi 
gram,  called  herself  an  animated  broomstick.  But  she  had 
a  mind,  and  the  mind  may  wear  much  that  the  body  must 
cast  aside. 

She  picked  up  the  ponderous,  leather-covered  volume  and 
carried  it  to  its  shelf.  It  was  a  disagreeable  shelf  marked 
'reference/  and  with  a  further  explanation  stating  that 
books  belonging  on  it  could  not  be  taken  out  of  the  library. 
She  had  read  that  explanation  many  times;  it  applied  to 
most  of  the  books  she  liked  best.  She  turned  and  went 
back  to  her  seat  at  the  big  table,  the  table  to  the  left; 
there  was  another  table  to  the  right  and  two  more  facing 
the  high  windows.  Miss  Smith's  desk  was  to  the  extreme 
left  behind  a  sort  of  wire  fence,  and  Dr.  Guthrie,  her 
honored  chief,  was  still  more  screened  from  the  vulgar 
gaze.  Dr.  Guthrie  was  a  very  wise  man  indeed.  Emily 
Stedman  was  firm  in  the  belief  that  he  had  read  all  the 
books  in  the  Hornmouth  library.  There  were  books,  books, 
books,  right  to  the  ceiling;  and  there  was  a  little  iron 
balcony  halfway  to  the  top  which  was  reached  by  a  little 
iron  stairway.  Dr.  Guthrie  seemed  to  spend  the  greater 
part  of  his  time  perched  upon  this  balcony,  his  skullcap 


THE   GIRDLE   OF   VENUS  5 

pushed  to  the  back  of  his  head,  his  coat  tails  blown  by  the 
breeze  from  the  open  window.  But  at  heart  he  was  a 
calm  man.  The  present  touched  him  but  lightly;  he  dealt 
with  the  past ;  the  period  of  the  Punic  Wars  was  his  especial 
province.  Dr.  Rainor  was  a  doctor  of  divinity ;  his  especial 
province  was  the  period  of  the  future.  Emily's  father, 
Dr.  Stedman,  dealt  almost  exclusively  with  the  present 
—  he  was  a  biologist. 

The  students  of  Hornmouth  University  had  the  past, 
present,  and  future  thrust  at  them  in  compact,  easily  di 
gested  pellets,  and  during  the  process  of  assimilation  they 
sat  at  the  library  tables  and  took  notes.  There  seemed, 
Emily  thought,  to  be  more  notes  than  students.  She  never 
took  notes,  —  but  she  wasn't  a  student;  she  was  merely 
an  ugly  little  girl  —  at  the  age  of  fourteen  it  was  a  more 
aggressive  thing  than  plainness. 

The  library  closed  at  six.  One  by  one  its  occupants 
glanced  at  the  clock,  collected  their  possessions,  and  went 
out.  Miss  Smith  at  her  desk  was  gathering  up  some  papers. 
Dr.  Guthrie  took  off  his  skullcap  and  put  it  in  his  pocket. 
Emily  alone  made  no  movement,  and  Miss  Smith's  spec 
tacles  had  become  increasingly  intrusive.  At  last  Dr. 
Guthrie  opened  his  little  wicket  gate  and  stepped  out. 
Emily  looked  up  at  him,  and  he  met  her  startled  eyes: 
"Dreamer  —  dreamer !  — " 

"Pardon  me,  Dr.  Guthrie,  did  you  speak?" 

The  doctor  turned  to  Miss  Smith.  "Miss  Smith,  did  I 
speak?" 

"I  don't  think  so,  Doctor." 

"You  see!—" 

Emily  rose.     "Good  night." 


6  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

This  intimate  of  war  and  power  and  wisdom  — this 
worshipper  of  glory  and  love  —  was  terribly  embarrassed 
by  the  presence  of  Miss  Smith  and  Dr.  Guthrie.  They  had 
always  been  merely  the  wax  dolls  she  had  dressed  in  the 
elaborate  garments  of  her  fancy,  the  allegorical  figures  of 
Wisdom. 

"Good  night,"  she  repeated. 

"Good  night,  Miss  Emily—" 

It  was  as  if  the  big  table  were  executing  a  pas  seul, 
or  the  statue  of  Venus  had  stepped  down  from  its  pedestal. 

The  sun  had  set;  but  the  autumn  sky  was  still  flushed 
with  it,  and  the  buildings  of  Hornmouth,  with  their  dull 
brick  walls  and  slate  roofs,  were  surrounded  by  a  vari 
colored  glory  not  their  own.  The  new  House  of  Mechanics, 
brave  in  white  marble  and  columns,  bore  a  closer  re 
semblance  than  usual  to  an  Athenian  temple.  It  was  a 
gift  from  a  rich  alumnus,  and  though  Hornmouth  was 
becomingly  grateful,  she  was  also  somewhat  disturbingly 
aware  of  the  contrasting  shabbiness  of  her  other  architec 
ture.  Dr.  Rainor  called  the  new  House  of  Mechanics  the 
vanity  of  the  flesh.  Emily's  father,  Dr.  Stedman,  called  it 
the  vanity  of  the  rich  alumnus.  Emily  didn't  know  what 
either  of  them  meant,  and  she  didn't  care.  She  supposed 
the  statue  of  Venus  was  the  vanity  of  the  flesh,  and  the 
bright  color  of  the  clouds  and  the  sense  of  the  fresh,  clear 
air.  The  dinner  that  she  was  going  home  to,  —  the  hot, 
thick  soup  and  cold  meat  and  underdone  potatoes,  - 
surely  that  wasn't  the  vanity  of  anything.  Neither  was 
her  shabby  woollen  coat.  But  her  coat  and  her  dinner 
didn't  seem  to  matter;  she  never  thought  about  them; 
and  it  was  only  the  things  she  thought  about  which  malr 


THE   GIRDLE   OF   VENUS  7 

tered.  Hornmouth  was  given  to  displays  neither  of  fash 
ion  nor  of  cookery.  The  coat  was  warm,  and  the  dinner 
sustained  the  body  that  wore  it.  Besides,  she  didn't 
have  to  look  at  them.  She  could  look,  instead,  at  her 
cousin,  Ralph  Parrish,  who  was  now  coming  towards  her 
on  horseback.  His  was  the  vanity  of  the  flesh  and  of  the 
world  and  of  the  devil. 

ii 

'You  hit  too  often,  and  you  don't  think  enough.  Wait 
—  you've  all  the  time  there  is.  See  where  you  want  to  hit, 
and  then  hit  hard.  Meanwhile  you'll  get  pounded,  you  say  ? 
What's  the  use  of  size  and  strength  if  you  can't  stand  being 
pounded?  One  smash  and  the  other  fellow's  down  and 
out  —  you're  a  bit  sore,  that's  all." 

A  pale  young  imp,  all  arms  and  legs  and  faded  gingham 
dress,  theorizing  on  the  Gentle  Art  in  order  that  a  pair  of 
fledging  giants  may  the  better  maim  each  other.  Emily 
Stedman  giving  a  lesson  in  the  art  of  war.  This  was  better, 
even,  than  the  shadows  cast  by  a  flickering  candle.  This 
was  life  instead  of  dreams;  this  was  reality,  and  better — • 
at  the  moment  —  than  all  the  wisdom  of  Hornmouth 
University. 

At  the  age  of  fourteen  Emily  Stedman's  opinion  on  war 
was  eagerly  sought.  She  had  a  fundamental  detachment 
from  it  which  made  her  a  fairly  unbiassed  judge.  If  she 
herself  had  been  fighting  the  dreaded  boy  who  lived  on  the 
other  side  of  the  hedge,  how  could  she  have  seen  the  flaws 
in  Ralph  Parrish's  method  of  attack  ?  She  would  have  been 
too  much  blinded  by  the  dust  of  battle.  Instead,  she  had 
sat  at  the  safe  distance  of  the  stable-yard  gate  and  hurled 


8  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

invective  — at  once  derogatory  and  weird  — at  the  con 
quering  enemy.  Her  cousin  knew  how  to  take  his  licking. 
A  bloody  nose  and  a  nasty  cut  over  one  eye,  which  seemed 
somehow  to  get  mixed  up  with  his  thick,  light  hair,  were 
only  two  of  many  small  injuries.  But  he  sustained  them 
all  with  graceful  ease.  He  listened  to  Emily's  little  homily 
quite  as  if  his  handkerchief  wasn't  increasingly  scarlet  and 
a  great  red  drop  didn't  occasionally  splash  into  the  puddle 
in  the  road  beside  him. 

"I'm  not  afraid  of  being  pounded  — it  isn't  that  — I 
can't  wait — " 

"No,  you're  always  at  it." 

"Too  much;  but  I'm  not  afraid  — " 

"You're  afraid  without  knowing  it.  You  can't  help 
yourself;  Berry's  fist  looks  like  the  biggest  thing  in  sight. 
But  to  him  yours  looks  just  as  big." 

Ralph  doubled  the  discussed  implement  and  meditatively 
regarded  it. 

"Yours  is  just  as  big.  My  Lord !  —  if  I  had  a  fist  like 
that!—" 

"What  would  you  do  ? "  Her  cousin's  curiosity  was  half 
hearted. 

"I'd  lick  Deny  within  an  inch  of  his  soul." 

"How?" 

"Like  this— " 

Emily's  arm  shot  out  —  her  thin  little  hand  became  a 
ball  of  steel.  Ralph  Parrish  staggered  under  the  blow 
-  balanced  a  moment  on  the  swinging  gate  —  and  then  fell 
backwards  into  the  muddy  road.  That  was  life,  if  you  like. 
It  might,  of  course,  be  death.  But  if  it  were  Emily 
wouldn't,  just  then,  have  very  much  cared.  She  stared 


THE   GIRDLE   OF   VENUS  9 

down  upon  the  limp,  prostrate  figure,  curious  at  what  she 
had  done,  elated  at  her  own  unexpected  strength.  Her 
cousin's  whole  aspect  was  very  vivid  to  her.  His  rather 
large  face  was  white  save  where  it  was  gory;  his  loose  flannel 
shirt  was  torn  wide  at  the  neck.  At  an  age  when  most 
boys  are  lean  little  beasts  he  had  attained  a  certain  splendor 
of  physique  —  a  splendor  that  stretched  wide  his  thin 
linen  knickerbockers  and  condoned  the  exaggerated  spread 
of  his  mouth.  As  soon  as  nature  permitted,  he  covered  his 
mouth  with  a  mustache.  It  was  the  only  feature  he  pos 
sessed  which  was  not  altogether  agreeable;  it  spread  too 
far ;  it  was  like  a  mouth  seen  through  a  magnifying  glass. 

Emily  sat  there  on  the  top  of  the  gate  for  some  time. 
There  were  whole  years  of  time  which  counted  for  less. 
Then  Ralph  Parrish  slowly  rose  to  his  feet.  Emily  won 
dered,  dimly,  what  he  was  going  to  do.  She  half  expected 
to  be  felled  to  the  ground.  Her  triumphant  moment 
seemed  over.  There  he  was,  tall  and  strong,  and  in  his 
dishevelled  condition  almost  sinister.  She  slid  down  from 
the  gate.  She  would  put  the  strength  of  her  theorizing  to 
the  proof ;  she  would  meet  her  pupil  in  open  battle ;  if  she 
could  knock  him  down  once,  she  could  do  it  again.  Her 
arm  still  tingled  with  the  success  of  that  first  blow.  Yet 
with  it  all  —  mixed  with  the  joy  of  the  prospective  fight 
—  she  was  terribly  afraid ;  and,  unlike  her  cousin,  she  was 
acutely  conscious  of  her  fear. 

She  waited,  impatient,  on  the  alert.     "Well  ?  — " 

"What?" 

"Aren't  you  going  to  hit  back?" 

Ralph  Parrish  looked  at  her  silently.  It  couldn't  have 
been  a  very  edifying  occupation;  she  wasn't  pretty;  and 


10  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

behind  the  glitter  of  his  slate  blue  eyes  there  seemed  a  sort 
of  latent  reflection  of  her  ugliness. 

"Aren't  you?"  she  asked  again. 

"Aren't  I  what?" 

"Going  to  hit  back—" 

"Why,  no." 

She  had  an  inspired  moment.  "If  I  were  a  boy,  you'd 
hit  back!" 

Ralph  Parrish  was  David  singing  in  the  tent  of  the  awak 
ening  Saul. 

"Yes,  but  you're  not.    You're  a  girl." 

Then  it  was  that  she  came  closer  yet  to  life.  Ralph 
picked  her  up  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her,  a  kiss  strangely 
mixed  with  mud  and  blood  and  the  warmth  of  conflict. 

in 

The  big  hunter's  moon  was  in  its  last  quarter.  It 
balanced  on  the  tip  of  University  Hill  —  uncertain,  almost 
drunken  —  and  then  rose  triumphant.  The  road  stretched 
upward  very  straight  and  very  white,  and  a  lantern  on  the 
Stedman  porch  flickered  and  went  out.  The  windows 
of  Dr.  Stedman's  study  cast  two  patches  of  yellow  light  on 
the  dark  grass.  The  doctor  himself  had  gone  in  there  some 
hours  before  and  locked  the  door ;  he  had  this  inhuman  way 
of  shutting  himself  off  from  the  disturbances  of  the  outside 
world.  He  carried  the  inverted  eye  —  the  inner  life  —  to 
an  exaggeration.  In  the  place  where  he  now  lives  the  in 
verted  eye  has  probably  found  its  true  orbit.  .  .  . 

Dr.  Stedman's  daughter  looked  up  at  her  father's  house 
for  what  she  thought  would  be  the  last  time.  In  an  upper 
window  the  shade  was  drawn  down,  and  she  saw  through  it 


THE  GIRDLE   OF  VENUS  11 

the  shadow  of  a  figure  moving  about.  It  was  her  mother. 
How  little  her  mother  knew.  Emily  knew  a  great  deal ;  she 
and  Ralph  Parrish  were  going  to  run  away.  It  was  an 
idea  born  of  Emily's  desire  for  life. 

The  road  stretched  upward,  very  white  and  very  empty, 
and  the  snapping  autumn  cold  cut  sharp ;  but  she  turned  her 
collar  about  her  ears;  Ralph  was  waiting  for  her  at  the 
upper  railway  station.  They  were  going  into  the  unknown 
—  beyond  University  Hill  —  beyond  the  village  —  even 
beyond  the  upper  railway  station.  They  were  going  to 
Boston,  and  from  Boston  they  were  to  take  a  ship.  Emily 
had  never  seen  the  ocean.  And  then  —  they  frankly 
didn't  know.  But  there  could  be  a  great  deal  of  life  be 
tween  then  and  now.  Even  if  they  were  forced  to  turn  back, 
there  would  be  the  memory  of  this  night,  with  the  drunken 
moon  and  the  cold  air  and  the  darkness  which  didn't  pre 
vent  the  clearness  —  the  memory,  not  to  mention  the 
actuality.  Emily  had  a  sense  of  extreme  elation,  of  an 
expectation  so  intense  that  it  verged  on  fear.  It  was  as  if 
she  were  possessed  of  some  new  power,  some  added,  higher 
faculty. 

She  went  up  the  hill,  past  the  college  buildings,  past  the 
new  House  of  Mechanics,  and  down  through  the  village. 
A  muffling  cloth  seemed  to  be  taken  away,  and  familiar 
objects  stood  out  in  unaccustomed  bareness.  A  little  white 
cat  scampered  across  her  path,  and  the  church  clock  startled 
her  with  one  loud  chime.  The  gravestones  stood  up 
straightly  like  soldiers  marching.  There  were  dark  door 
ways  and  trim,  square  houses.  The  moon,  hanging  in 
space,  was  performing  marvellous  feats  of  balancing.  If 
she  could  balance  like  that !  Her  legs  seemed  to  act  of 


12  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

their  own  volition;  she  became  aware  that  she  was  run 
ning,  but  she  felt  no  fatigue,  and  running  was  one  of  the 
many  things  forbidden  her.  But  she  was  strong  now  - 
stronger  than  she  had  ever  been  in  her  life  before  —  almost 
as  solid  and  as  splendid  as  he  towards  whom  she  was  run 
ning.  Her  mind,  her  little  laboring  brain,  was  fast  asleep, 
taking  a  great  beautiful  rest ;  and  her  senses  —  her  sense 
of  the  wind  in  her  face  and  of  her  own  new  strength  — 
were  taking  its  place.  She  was  beyond  the  village  now. 
Houses  had  given  way  to  trees,  and  in  front  her  path  lay 
through  a  wide,  flat  field.  The  little  white  cat  had  been 
following  her,  and  it  dashed  past  her,  a  streak  of  deeper 
white  against  the  whiteness  of  the  road. 

She  stopped  running.  Her  blood  throbbed  up  and 
pounded  at  her  temples.  The  sound  of  it  drowned  the 
sound  of  her  voice  when  she  tried  to  call.  And  then  came 
the  soft  patter  of  the  cat's  returning  feet.  She  called  again; 
she  had  a  sudden  horror  of  being  alone.  Alone  on  foot  at 
night  we  enter  that  world  which  is  at  other  times  always  a 
little  ahead  of  us ;  and  Emily  was  very  much  alone.  Be 
sides  herself  there  was  the  inquiring  cat  and  the  swaying 
road  and  the  drunken,  balancing  moon.  Ralph  Parrish 
came  to  her  across  the  wide  field.  He  caught  her  as  she 
fainted  dead  away. 

The  upper  railway  station  at  Hornmouth  was  a  small, 
unimportant  structure  which  had  outlived  its  usefulness. 
The  patronage  of  the  Hornmouth  traveller  had  gone  over 
to  the  other  line  of  road,  and  the  station  for  that  road  was 
in  quite  an  opposite  direction.  In  fact,  the  upper  railway 
station  existed  largely  by  virtue  of  the  inertia  which  makes 
it  easier  to  live  than  to  die.  But  it  had  its  loyal  friends 


THE   GIEDLE   OP  VENUS  13 

—  a  select  company  of  people  who  desired,  for  reasons  best 
known  to  themselves,  either  to  leave  or  arrive  at  Horn- 
mouth  unnoticed.    And  there  was  a  train  which  happened 
to  stop  there  in  the  very  small  hours  of  the  morning,  a  train 
peculiarly  theirs.     And  they  chose  their  hour  well.     Moon 
light  lent  to  the  upper  railway  station  a  picturesqueness 
natively  foreign  to  it,  gave  it  a  look  like  the  hut  of  the 
wicked  witch  in  the  middle  of  the   silver   field;    it   only 
lacked  a  wandering  prince  and  princess. 

The  station-master  came  out  with  his  lantern.  The 
train  stopped.  The  awakened  passengers  stared  sleepily. 
And  presently,  with  much  grumbling,  the  train  went  on 
again.  He  of  the  lantern  gave  a  puzzled  glance  about, 
and  then  went  within  and  shook  the  fire  in  his  stove  to  a 
greater  brilliancy.  Beyond  the  edge  of  the  silver  field  the 
prince  was  carrying  the  princess  farther  and  farther  away 
from  the  witch's  hut  and  the  fiery  dragon.  They  couldn't 

—  even  together  —  face  it. 
"Ralph—" 
"Emily—" 

"Am  I  very  heavy?" 

"No." 

"Because  if  I'm  heavy,  you  must  set  me  down." 

"  And  then  — ?" 

"And  then  — what?" 

"After  I  had  set  you  down,  what  would  you  do?" 

"  I  think  I  could  walk.    Ralph  — " 

"Yes." 

"I'm  sorry  I  can't  go.  Some  day  I  may  grow  stronger. 
Some  day  —  the  ocean  —  isn't  the  ocean  blue,  Ralph, 
like  the  sky  ?  And  there  are  little  white  waves  and  bubbles 


14  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

of  foam.  I'll  climb  out  to  the  bow  of  a  big  ship,  and  the 
ocean  will  pass  under  me,  and  I'll  have  a  house  built  on 
the  edge  of  a  great  cliff  —  a  house  all  my  own  — " 

"And  I?" 

"I  have  you  without  the  house,  you  to  carry  me.  I 
should  much  rather  carry  you.  Do  you  remember  the  day 
I  knocked  you  down?" 

"That  was  yesterday." 

"That  was  back  —  back  —  ever  so  far  back." 

"I  don't  understand." 

They  seemed  to  traverse  great  distances,  the  village 
street  was  of  an  interminable  length,  and  all  the  time  the 
moon  balanced  with  tireless  energy.  Emily  was  cold; 
Ralph  took  off  his  coat  and  wrapped  it  about  her,  and  she 
was  too  weak  to  resist.  It  was  a  slow  progress  that  they 
made,  and  became  slower  still  as  Ralph's  muscles  tired  of 
their  burden. 

"Emily—" 

"Ralph—" 

"Could  you  walk  now,  a  few  steps?" 

"I'll  do  my  best."  But  the  road  rose  up  in  front  of  her, 
a  crooked,  swaying  mass. 

It  was  under  the  shadow  of  the  new  House  of  Mechanics 
that  Ralph's  strength  utterly  failed  him.  They  sat  down 
together  on  the  marble  steps  and  watched  the  first  paleness 
of  the  sky. 

"Ralph  —  " 

"Yes?—" 

"Did  you  ever  hear  of  the  girdle  of  Venus?" 
"No—" 

"Venus  — one  of  the  most  celebrated  deities  of   the 


THE  GIRDLE  OF  VENUS  15 

ancients  —  she  was  sprung  from  the  froth  of  the  sea,  Ralph, 
with  the  white  foam  all  about  her  and  a  little  cockle-shell. 
She  had  a  girdle  —  a  girdle  of  fire,  with  red  flames.  Do 
you  think  she'd  lend  it  to  me?  If  I  could  wear  it  even 
once  — 

" '  Spotted  snakes  with  double  tongues, 
Thorny  hedgehogs,  be  not  seen  — 
Newts  and  blindworms,  do  no  wrong  — 
Bow,  wow, 

The  watchdogs  bark  — 
Bow,  wow  — 
Hark,  hark !  I  hear 
The  strain  of  strutting  chanticleer 
Cry  cock-a-diddle-dow ! ' 

"  That's  Shakespeare,  Ralph.  It  isn't  just  like  that  in 
the  book ;  but  it's  no  matter  —  Shakespeare  and  Venus 
—  Ralph!" 

"Yes?" 

"At  home  they  must  never  know." 

The  road  was  straighter  now,  very  straight  and  very 
white,  and  the  moonlight  faded  in  the  dawn. 

"Ralph,  you  go  first." 

Emily  waited,  a  solitary  little  figure,  half  hidden  by  the 
broad  hedge ;  and  then  she  went  back  to  her  father's  house. 
The  lights  in  Dr.  Stedman's  study  were  long  since  out,  and 
she  was  unobserved  upon  the  stair. 

IV 

If  wisdom  is  the  knowledge  of  the  minds  of  men,  it  is  also 
the  knowledge  of  their  bodies;  and  if  there  was  one  thing 
more  than  another  —  more,  even,  than  the  new  House  of 


16  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

Mechanics  —  upon  which  the  University  of  Hornmouth 
prided  herself,  it  was  upon  her  possession  of  R.  H.  Stedman, 
biologist  and  professor  of  biology. 

Hornmouth  appreciated  R.  H.  Stedman.  The  outside 
world  didn't  wake  up  to  him  till  after  his  lamented  death. 
The  outside  world  is  still  in  the  act  of  discovering  his  great 
ness.  But  Hornmouth  occupies  the  enviable  position  of 
having  known  it  all  along  —  Hornmouth  even  considers 
that  she  made  his  greatness  possible.  She  at  least  gave 
him  a  hearth  and  home  without  a  too  great  sacrifice  of 
leisure.  And  her  devotion  was  one  of  those  pure  passions 
which  are  wholly  devoid  of  self-seeking,  for  Dr.  Stedman 
wasn't  a  very  good  professor.  He  took  no  pains  to  do  what 
is  known  in  pedagogic  circles  as  finding  the  level  of  his 
classes;  he  even  denied  that  they  had  a  level.  He  didn't 
care  a  straw  for  the  good  of  the  young  idea;  unlike  most 
biologists,  he  didn't  care  a  straw  for  the  good  of  humanity 
itself.  His  researches,  his  discoveries,  his  marvellous  books, 
were  achieved  for  the  good  of  his  own  soul ;  and  what  was 
the  whole  University  of  Hornmouth,  weighed  in  the  balance 
with  Dr.  Stedman's  soul  ?  But  Hornmouth  was  indulgent. 
Dr.  Stedman  was  her  only  luxury. 

It  was  the  very  concentration  of  his  purpose  —  the  in 
tensity  of  his  egoism  — that  caused  his  greatness.  He 
won  by  sheer  force  of  character—  or  rather  by  sheer  lack 
of  it.  He  bent  to  his  own  ends  his  wife  and  his  house  and 
his  University.  He  was  a  man  apart,  a  being  exempt  from 
the  ordinary  human  burdens.  He  was  an  immortal  mind 
descended  upon  the  earth  to  discover  the  secrets  of  the  less 
immortal  body.  What  wonder  that  his  path  should  be 
made  smooth?  It  was  made  more  than  smooth;  its  smooth- 


THE   GIRDLE   OF   VENUS  17 

ness  attained  to  glassiness.  But  in  the  midst  of  all  this 
harmony  there  was  one  discordant  note, —  one  flaw,  — 
his  daughter.  It  seemed  strange  to  him  that  he  should 
have  a  daughter;  he  had  never  somehow  regarded  himself 
in  that  light.  And  Emily  was  rather  more  than  an  ordinary 
daughter;  she  bid  very  fair  to  become  another  immortal 
mind.  There  was  hardly  room  in  one  house  for  two  im 
mortal  minds;  and  the  greater  part  of  Dr.  Stedman's 
house  was  turned  into  a  place  in  which  were  discovered  the 
secrets  of  the  less  immortal  body. 

Emily  said  that  her  father's  study  resembled  nothing  so 
much  as  a  desert  swept  by  a  cyclone.  Emily  resented  her 
father.  She  resented  his  strength.  She  resented  his  big, 
barren  room ;  she  failed  to  understand  how  any  one  could 
spend  the  greater  part  of  his  waking  hours  there.  Apart 
from  the  very  present  question  of  its  ugliness,  the  place  was 
so  relentlessly  a  workshop.  One  set  aside  on  its  threshold 
the  garments  of  leisure  and  pleasure  and  came  in  stripped 
for  labor,  the  hard  labor  of  the  mind.  She  herself  would 
have  preferred  a  softer  surrounding  —  delicate  stuffs  and 
small  broken  spaces;  her  thoughts  took  too  long  journeys 
with  nothing  to  say  them  nay;  they  couldn't  stand  the 
strain  and  pull.  The  external  aspect  made  a  great  dif 
ference  in  Emily's  thoughts.  She  had  a  passion  for  the 
thing  she  called  beauty;  beauty  made  her  forget  her  ugli 
ness;  beauty  was  her  dream.  Her  father's  dream  was 
differently  wooed ;  her  father  took  for  it  a  different  potion. 
He  went  into  his  big  room,  his  desert  swept  by  a  cyclone, 
and  locked  the  door.  The  sound  of  the  turning  key  was 
to  him  like  the  first  notes  of  loud  music;  the  very  smell 
that  greeted  his  nostrils  —  the  smell  which  was  not  so  much 


18  OTHER   PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

a  smell  as  an  absence  of  all  other  smells,  a  sort  of  atmos 
pheric  hollowness  —  gave  him  a  sense  of  potential  excite 
ment.  In  his  own  way  Dr.  Stedman  was  a  poet ;  and  the 
big  untidy  room,  with  its  locked  door  and  its  strange  smell, 
was  the  habitation  of  his  poetry.  The  desk,  the  rows  of 
books,  the  shabby  leather  chair,  the  queer  metal  tables  and 
instruments  and  the  slimy  pink  things  in  the  sealed  glass 
jars,  — all  these  were  to  him  as  the  furniture  of  his  own 
mind. 

Dr.  Stedman's  was  the  little  yellow  house  just  beyond 
University  Hill.  It  had  pea-green  shutters  and  a  highly 
varnished  door  by  which  you  entered  directly  into  the  tiny 
hall  that  was  forced  into  use  as  a  sitting-room.  Dr.  Sted 
man's  niece,  Mrs.  Parrish,  had  the  mueh  larger  house  just 
beyond  his;  her  grounds  began  at  her  uncle's  back  yard. 
If  the  new  House  of  Mechanics  was  beautiful,  Mrs.  Parrish's 
grounds  were  exquisite.  There  were  clipped  hedges  and 
gardens  and  gravel  walks,  great  elms  and  an  old  stone  sun 
dial.  There  were  spaces  of  sunlight  and  spaces  of  shade 
—  curved  benches  on  which  to  sit  and  straight  steps  on 
which  to  stand.  And  then  came  the  house  —  big  and  old 
and  yet  gay;  little  Emily  Stedman  called  it  the  smile  of 
the  father  of  Pan.  Her  own  house  was  small  and  new 
and  yet  sad.  It  had  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  Pan.  But 
it  wasn't  her  own;  it  was  her  father's.  Her  father  lived 
in  a  desert  swept  by  a  cyclone,  and  the  little  yellow  house 
with  the  pea-green  shutters  was  outside  and  apart. 

In  June  the  scent  of  the  wet,  fresh-cut  grass  blew  in 
through  his  windows,  and  his  windows  overlooked  Mrs. 
Parrish's  grounds.  He  could  rest  his  strained  eyes  when 
ever  he  chose.  When  he  wearied  of  nature  embryonic,  he 


THE   GIRDLE   OF   VENUS  19 

could  rejoice  in  the  spectacle  of  nature  complete.  And 
on  a  certain  June  morning  —  the  one  following  his 
daughter's  fifteenth  birthday  —  his  need  of  rejoicing  was 
very  great. 

There  had  been  a  little  celebration.  His  wife  had  pro 
cured  a  cake  and  candles ;  and  his  niece,  Mrs.  Parrish,  to 
gether  with  her  son,  Ralph,  had  graced  their  festive  board. 
Dr.  Guthrie,  also.  .  .  .  It  was  a  strange  assemblage  for  a 
child's  birthday  party  —  the  two  learned  doctors,  the  quite 
unlearned  niece  of  one  of  them,  and  the  boy  Ralph — big  and 
blond  and  rather  shy  in  the  presence  of  his  elders.  Mrs. 
Stedman  had  worn  her  best  gown,  and  Emily  was  resplen 
dent  in  stiff  pink  muslin.  The  big  student's  lamp  had  been 
brought  in  from  the  sitting  room  and  set  on  the  dining  table, 
which  was  still  further  decorated  by  roses  from  Mrs.  Par- 
rish's  garden.  Dr.  Stedman  had  felt  unwontedly  social. 
He  mixed  his  guests  a  curious  and  original  drink,  and  they 
drank  to  Emily  and  to  the  college  year  which  was  drawing 
to  a  successful  close.  "When  Hornmouth's  year  ends," 
said  Dr.  Guthrie,  "our  year  begins.  When  the  students  of 
Hornmouth  are  flocking  forth  into  the  gay  world  —  gam 
bolling  like  lambs  let  out  to  play  —  we  —  we  —  are  shut 
ting  our  doors  against  the  glorious  summer  weather,  delving 
among  our  musty  volumes,  and  piercing  the  secrets  of 
eternity  with  our  microscopes."  The  learned  doctor  paused 
and  refreshed  himself  with  the  original  drink.  "We 
divide  among  us  the  great  slain  carcass  of  knowledge,  and 
our  vigil  is  lit  by  the  ignis  fatuus  over  the  marsh  of  our 
exhausted  brains.  We  have  wasted  our  youth,"  he  said, 
"and  we  are  wasting  our  age,  in  pursuit  of  unpursuable 
things.  But  why?  Because  we  must.  When  the  day 


20  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

comes  for  us  to  answer  to  our  good  Lord  for  the  use  we  have 
made  of  our  sojourn  upon  this  earth,  we  may  say  —  we 
may  say — " 

"My  soul !  —  he's  getting  drunk  — " 
Mrs.  Fairish  frowned.     "Be  quiet,  Ralph." 
"We  may  say  that  for  us  this  earth  has  been  merely  as 
the  winding  pattern  of  a  Persian  carpet  —  a  Persian  carpet. 
We  have  watched  it  from  an  Olympian  height.    For  us 
nature  has  been  but  as  so  much  material  for  our  thought. 
We  are  the  end  of  nature,  the  last  word;  we  are  more  — 
we  are  at  once  above  it  and  beyond  it.    We,  with  our  di- 
'  shevelled  aspects,  our  worn  coats,  our  white  mottled  skins, 
we  are  the  end  of  nature.    And  you  —  "  Dr.  Guthrie  turned 
to  Ralph  — "you  are  the  beginning.    And  you,  madam," 
his  excited  gaze  rested  on  Mrs.  Parrish,  "you  also  are  the 
beginning.    We  are  strange,  alien  creatures,  and  you  — 
you  are  normal  —  damnably  normal !" 

There  followed  a  silence  which  Dr.  Stedman's  daughter 
was  the  first  to  break.  There  she  sat,  with  her  pale  little 
face  and  exaggerated  eyes,  a  creature  as  alien  and  as 
strange  as  her  guest's  most  flushed  imagination  could  con 
jure.  "It  seems  to  me,"  she  said,  "that  we  look  at  nature 
from  the  point  of  view  of  father  dissecting  a  rabbit,  and 
they—  '  she  indicated  her  cousins  —  "they  look  at  it 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  rabbit.  And  isn't  theirs  the 
better  way?  Don't  they,  perhaps,  get  more  out  of  it?" 
And  then  this  other  strange  being,  this  other  immortal 
mind,  had  risen  from  the  feast  and  gone  out  to  play.  One 
of  the  rabbits,  personified  by  Ralph  Parrish,  had  gone  with 
her.  She  was  really  only  a  little  girl. 
Dr.  Stedman  looked  about  at  his  big,  barren  room.  In 


THE  GIRDLE   OF  VENUS  21 

the  glaring  morning  light  the  room  looked  back  at  him  with 
an  uncompromising  stare.  It  was,  as  Emily  said,  a  desert 
swept  by  a  cyclone.  What  Emily  said  would  have  to  be 
reckoned  with.  Last  night  she  had  sat  in  judgment  upon 
him;  and  his  friend,  Dr.  Guthrie,  had  made  a  drunken 
speech  in  which  all  his  most  sacred  ideals  were  held  up  to 
ridicule.  Dr.  Stedman  wondered  a  little  exactly  what  he 
had  put  in  that  drink.  He  himself  had  waked  that  morning 
with  an  unaccustomed  feeling  in  his  head.  It  reminded  him 
of  his  German  student  days.  Those  had  been  a  long  time 
ago.  Was  it  true  that  he  had  wasted  his  life  in  pursuit  of 
unpursuable  things?  Was  it  true,  what  Emily  said,  that 
his  niece,  Laura  Parrish,  got  more  out  of  life  than  he  did  ? 
He  had  always  considered  that  he  got  so  much.  He  was 
seized  with  a  sudden  anger  against  himself  and  his  work. 

He  opened  his  windows  wider.  The  scent  of  the  wet, 
fresh-cut  grass  cooled  his  head.  Emily  was  young  —  Emily 
could  get  away,  while  he ...  He  picked  up  one  of  the 
sealed  glass  jars.  The  thing  fell  to  pieces  in  his  hand,  and 
its  contents  slid  along  the  metal  table  and  dropped  with  a 
soft  flap  to  the  floor.  That,  he  supposed  —  that  soft  pink 
lump  —  was  tiie  unpursuable  thing.  It  was  not  in  pursuit 
of  it,  surely,  that  he  had  mixed  the  abominable  drink.  In 
pursuit,  rather,  of  the  damnably  normal.  And  the  dam 
nably  normal  had  given  him  a  headache.  And  his  daughter, 
who  bid  so  very  fair  to  become  another  immortal  mind,  was 
playing  ball  with  Ralph  Parrish.  He  could  see  her  from 
his  windows.  No  wonder  that  Dr.  Stedman's  need  of.  re 
joicing  was  very  great. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   CUCKOO 


SOME  few  years  ago  a  woman  —  probably  an  American 
—  was  wandering  about  among  the  shelves  and  tables  of 
the  most  noted  bookseller  in  Paris.  She  was  neither 
very  young  nor  very  old,  very  beautiful  nor  very  ugly;  she 
wasn't  even  —  according  to  the  standards  of  Americans  in 
Paris  —  very  well  dressed.  She  was  rather  a  tall  woman, 
largely  made,  and  when  she  spoke  her  mouth  opened  to  an 
unexpected  length.  Her  eyes  were,  perhaps,  her  most 
arresting  feature;  they  had  a  tendency  towards  promi 
nence,  and  were  of  a  curious  golden  color  not  unlike  the 
deeper  yellow  of  transparent  amber.  Besides  being  yellow, 
they  were  at  the  moment  slightly  bloodshot.  The  Paris 
sun  was  evidently  too  bright,  though  from  the  tone  of  their 
possessor's  skin  it  might  seem  that  they  had  lately  been 
exposed  to  a  sun  still  more  powerful,  for  the  woman  who 
wandered  about  among  the  book-shelves  was  deeply  tanned. 
In  April  that  is  in  the  north  the  flag  of  wealth  and  leisure ; 
she  of  the  golden  eyes  was  golden  in  other  respects  also, 
or  the  fortunate  owner  of  golden  friends. 

Her  companion  made  up  in  elaboration  of  costume  what 
she  lacked.  Her  companion  was  not  an  American.  It  is 

only  a  Frenchman  who  can  wear  a  frock-coat  in  the  morn- 

22 


THE   CUCKOO  23 

ing  without  suggesting  either  politics  or  weddings.  Politics 
the  Duke  de  Clopin  had  always  managed  to  avoid;  with 
weddings  he  had  not  been  so  successful.  The  lady  with 
whom  he  had  come  to  the  book-shop,  though  not  his  wife, 
was  his  wife's  very  intimate  friend.  She  addressed  him  in 
English.  She  had  a  slow  method  of  speech,  the  outcome 
of  a  successful  battle  with  the  Western  burr,  and  also  of  the 
habit  of  conversing  with  those  to  whom  English  was  a 
foreign  tongue.  "I  see  nothing  that  Lilla  would  like  — 
nothing." 

"  Is  there  nothing  ?  A  little  book  of  verse  —  a  story  — " 
The  duke  answered  her  in  French,  and  it  was  in  that 
language  that  their  talk  went  on. 

She  was  turning  pages  bound  in  yellow  paper.  "They 
are  all  the  same,  the  seven  deadly  sins  and  an  attempt  at 
wit.  The  tastes  of  maids  and  lackeys  plus  the  talent  to 
express  them." 

"True,  true.  I  remain  faithful  to  my  Hugo  and  my 
Maupassant  —  this  clatter  of  voices  that  should  be  still  is 
too  much.  But  is  there  not  anything  which  you  yourself 
could  use?  That  book  under  your  hand — " 

"  You  forget  that  I  have  a  daughter,  a  big  girl  of  seventeen, 
who  pops  her  nose  into  everything." 

"But  she  is  with  the  good  sisters  at  the  convent." 

"The  good  sisters  at  the  convent  can't  keep  her  always. 
There  are  moments  —  breathless  moments  —  when  she  is 
with  me.  And  I  more  and  more  see  that  as  the  years  go 
on,  she'll  be  more  than  a  daughter;  she'll  be  a  problem,  a 
great,  tall,  beautiful  problem." 

"Ah  —  but  she  will  marry  !" 

"Without  money,  Maurice,  and  without  position  —  a 


24  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

little  stray  American.  Whom,  may  I  ask,  will  she  marry  ?  " 
The  mother  put  it  to  him  without  hope. 

"  With  you  for  a  mother  she  will  marry  any  one  she  pleases 
—  any  one  you  please." 

The  lady  thus  complimented  made  an  untranslatable 
exclamation. 

"Oh,  but  she  will !"  the  duke  insisted. 

"She  isn't  like  me,  you  know.  She  has  the  fatal  gift 
of  beauty." 

"And  you?" 

"Ah  —  I  have  other  qualities  than  beauty;  qualities 
which  my  daughter  unfortunately  lacks." 

The  duke  was  staring  out  at  the  lively  Paris  street. 
"You  have  qualities  which  all  other  women  lack.  You 
know  what  you  have,  better  than  I  can  tell  it.  You  could 
do  anything,  anything  you  would.  An  immortal  descended 
among  us — " 

The  joke  was  too  good ;  it  was  a  very  perceptible  moment 
before  the  immortal  emerged  from  her  laughter.  "And 
yet  I  have  remained  a  widow  for  ten  long  years !  How  is 
it,  then,  that  it  will  be  so  easy  for  me  to  marry  my  daughter 
if  I  myself — " 

Her  companion  smiled  into  the  curled  depths  of  his 
beard.  "You  have  been  true  to  the  memory  of  your 
husband." 

"Inconsolable?" 

"Inconsolable." 

She  looked  at  him.    "It's  too  bad ! " 

He  met  her  look  with  all  seriousness.  "Yes.  Mistaken 
loyalty." 

This  had  the  effect  of  sending  her  across  the  shop. 


THE   CUCKOO  25 

"And  all  this  time  we  haven't  found  a  book  for  Lilla! 
Lilla  told  me  that  she  was  endeavoring  to  improve  her 
English;  I  wonder  if  any  of  these — "  She  had  stopped 
before  a  table  on  which  were  displayed  some  works  in  her 
native  language. 

The  clerk,  who  had  left  them,  now  came  back.  "Here  is 
a  book  which  is  being  much  talked  of  in  America.  If 
Madame  is  an  American,  she  has  doubtless  heard  of  it." 

"I  am  choosing  some  books  for  Madame  la  Duchesse, 
who  is  not  an  American;  but  what  is  this  book?" 

The  clerk  held  out  a  slim  volume  in  a  showy,  scarlet  bind 
ing.  " '  The  Cuckoo  — '" 

"Ah, '  The  Cuckoo/  — I  like  the  name.  Do  you  think  that 
Lilla  would  like  it?" 

"The  name?" 

"No,  the  book." 

The  Duke  de  Clopin  pondered.  "It  is  not  for  me  to  say. 
But  if  you  like  it,  let  us  take  it  to  Lilla,  and  on  our  own 
heads  be  it  if  we  do  not  make  a  success."  He  turned  to  the 
clerk.  "What  do  they  say  of  it  in  America?" 

"They  say  it  is  at  once  the  most  daring  and  the  most 
realistic  thing  that  has  appeared  in  years.  If  Madame  — " 

Madame  cut  him  short.  "The  seven  deadly  sins  again  — 
and  in  one  little  volume !  Well,  I'll  take  it."  She  glanced 
down  over  the  duke's  shoulder  at  the  title-page.  "'The 
Cuckoo,'  by  Emily  Stedman.  And  who,  may  I  ask,  is 
Emily  Stedman?" 

ii 

That  question,  the  one  put  to  the  Duke  de  Clopin  in  the 
Paris  book-shop,  was  asked  with  increasing  frequency. 


26  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

Asked  and  not  answered.  The  personality  of  Emily  Sted- 
man  was  shrouded  in  mystery.  A  rumor  was  afloat  that 
the  author  of  "The  Cuckoo"  was  a  man  — a  prominent 
clergyman  who  concealed  both  his  sex  and  his  identity 
under  a  clever  pseudonym.  The  prominent  clergyman 
came  out  with  a  vigorous  denial;  "The  Cuckoo"  wasn't  at 
all  a  religious  bird  —  rather  the  reverse.  And  then  the 
question  was  answered  once  for  all  by  a  photograph  which 
appeared  in  one  of  the  better  literary  journals.  It  was 
of  Emily  Stedman,  and  represented  a  slender  little  woman 
of  some  thirty  years  with  smoothly  brushed  hair  and  tight, 
stiff  clothes.  The  eyes  alone  redeemed  it.  In  fact,  the 
eyes  were  so  conspicuous  —  at  once  so  brilliant  and  so 
large,  and  so  set  in  darkness  —  that  had  it  not  been  for  Miss 
Stedman's  obvious  simplicity,  one  might  have  thought 
them  painted.  The  photograph  was  unaccompanied  by 
text ;  but  its  name  sufficed,  and  the  prominent  clergyman 
breathed  a  sigh  of  relief.  He  valued  his  reputation  as  a 
moral  teacher;  he  felt  it  fragile  and  in  jeopardy. 

The  publishers  of  "The  Cuckoo"  thanked  their  new  au 
thor  for  the  loan  of  her  photograph.  They  suggested  that 
an  interview  might  prove  commercially  valuable.  "In 
these  days  personality  is  the  great  asset.  The  public  likes 
to  know  what  its  favorites  eat  for  breakfast  and  when  they 
get  up  and  go  to  bed.  'The  Cuckoo7  has  hit  the  bull's-eye 
of  popular  success,  and  we  want  it  to  stay  there."  They 
wrote  to  their  new  author  at  her  native  town  of  Hornmouth 
and  received  a  reply  to  the  effect  that  an  objection  to  pub 
licity  was  of  course  unfair  to  them.  Miss  Stedman's  pub 
lishers  were  intimate  friends  of  the  New  York  Star's  man 
aging  editor.  A  representative  of  that  paper  was  sent  to 


THE   CUCKOO  27 

Hornmouth  without  delay.  An  interview  with  the  author 
of  "The  Cuckoo"  was  news  —  important  news. 

The  Star's  representative  arrived  at  Hornmouth  in  the 
afternoon.  He  had  come  all  the  way  from  New  York  to 
Boston  and  from  Boston  to  Hornmouth,  and  it  was  early 
summer  and  a  Saturday  at  that;  and  he  had  expected  a 
holiday.  Instead,  he  found  himself  at  what  seemed  to  his 
heated  vision  the  uttermost  end  of  the  earth  with  a  task 
before  him  which  could  prove  nothing  but  dull.  He 
thought  regretfully  of  his  lost  holiday;  he  and  his  young 
wife  had  planned  it  together.  He  himself  aspired  to  the 
hand  of  the  Muse,  but  he  himself  had  as  yet  dismally  failed. 
Journalism  —  he  pondered.  He  was  forced  to  make  his 
living  by  journalism.  He  was  at  the  beck  and  call  of  Red 
ding,  the  managing  editor,  and  of  Keene,  the  city  editor; 
and  he  felt  himself  a  better  man  than  they.  And  now  he 
was  to  add  a  feather  to  the  laden  cap  of  Emily  Stedman. 
Who  was  she,  a  little  New  England  old  maid,  to  have 
written  the  sensational  book  of  the  year  ?  —  while  he  ... 
Her  house  was  a  longer  distance  'from  the  station  than  he 
had  supposed;  the  sun  was  hot,  and  he  had  eaten  a  heavy 
lunch  on  the  train.  He  mopped  his  perspiring  brow 
and  flicked  the  dust  from  his  shoes.  That  must  be  the 
house  of  genius  —  the  little  yellow  house  with  the  green 
blinds. 

The  representative  of  the  Star  rang  the  bell.  After  some 
delay  the  door  was  opened  by  an  untidy  elderly  person, 
who  seemed  uncertain  concerning  Miss  Stedman's  where 
abouts.  "She  may  be  in  and  she  may  not.  I  guess  if 
she  is,  she's  busy,  and  if  she  isn't  — "  The  elderly  person 
paused. 


28  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"Will  you  kindly  take  her  my  card?  I  think  that  she's 
expecting  me." 

The  elderly  person  let  him  in  at  this,  and  he  wandered 
about  the  tiny  sitting-room  while  she  went  off  to  find  Miss 
Stedman.  The  place  was  in  great  disorder;  a  trunk  stood 
in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  gaping  its  contents,  a  worn  horse 
hair  sofa  was  pushed  crookedly  against  the  wall,  and  a  mass 
of  books  and  papers  covered  a  small  table.  The  elderly 
person  came  back.  Miss  Stedman  would  see  him. 

He  was  guided  through  a  little  passageway  into  a  large, 
dim  room,  which  he  thought  at  first  to  be  empty.  Fresh 
from  the  bright  summer  light,  he  was  unaccustomed  to 
dimness.  He  waited  a  moment,  and  then  he  became  aware 
that  there  were  two  people  in  the  room,  a  man  who  was 
sitting  on  a  wide  bench  in  the  farthest  corner  and  a  woman 
who  stood  with  her  back  to  him  looking  out  through  the 
drawn  curtains  of  a  big  window.  The  man  rose  to  his 
feet.  "Well,  Emily,  I  must  be  going.  I'll  see  you 
later." 

"Yes,  I'll  see  you  later." 

Emily  turned  about  and  looked  at  Ralph  Parrish  with 
cold  eyes.  The  representative  of  the  New  York  Star  was 
coming  towards  her  across  the  wide,  bare  floor.  To  her 
he  was  also  the  representative  of  success.  She  cared  a  great 
deal  about  success  —  tangible,  solid  success.  To  gain  it  she 
had  taken  the  thing  she  cared  about  —  her  ability  to  create 
-  and  forced  it  into  a  misshapen  bottle.  She  had  written 
"The  Cuckoo"  not  because  it  pleased  her,  but  because  she 
thought  that  it  would  please  the  public;  and  the  repre 
sentative  of  the  Star  was  a  proof  that  she  had  been  correct. 
Now  she  could  write  anything  she  pleased  —  go  anywhere 


THE   CUCKOO  29 

she  pleased.  The  Star  might  have  saved  the  expense  of  a 
journey.  Miss  Stedman  was  moving  to  New  York  the 
following  week.  Royalties  were  pouring  in  in  a  thickening 
stream.  It  was  one  of  the  cases  where  the  end  justifies  the 
means. 

Ralph  Parrish  paused  in  the  doorway.  "We  dine  at 
seven.  You  won't  be  late  ?" 

He  still  had  a  tendency  to  linger,  and  when  he  had  finally 
left  Emily  felt  forced  to  answer  the  reportorial  glance. 
"My  cousin,  Mr.  Parrish.  His  mother  lives  in  the  big 
house  next  to  this,  and  I  happen  to  be  dining  with  her 
to-night."  It  seemed  amusing  that  her  first  step  as  a 
public  character  should  be  an  explanation  of  Ralph  Parrish. 
He  had  always  in  some  way  been  concerned  with  her  first 
steps. 

There  was  a  moment  of  silence  —  almost  embarrassment 
—  and  the  journalistic  habit  rose  to  the  top.  "  Is  this  room, 
this  room  that  we're  in  now,  where  you  do  your  work?" 

"Yes.    It  used  to  be  my  father's  study." 

"Is  your  father  a  writer?" 

"My  father  was  a  biologist.  He  wrote,  of  course.  He 
died  two  years  ago." 

There  was  the  conventional  murmur  of  regret.  "And 
your  mother?" 

"She  died  two  years  before  my  father." 

"You  live  alone?" 

"Practically  that.  I  move  to  New  York  next  week. 
I'm  going  to  take  a  little  flat  —  a  little  flat  all  my  own." 

"But  isn't  this  house  your  own ?" 

"  In  a  sense,  of  course.  But  I  prefer  to  start  afresh.  For 
what  else  did  I  write  'The  Cuckoo'  ?" 


30  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

The  young  man  stared.  "Isn't  writing  'The  Cuckoo' 
a  curious  way  of  starting  afresh?"  He  was  becoming  ac 
customed  to  the  dim  light,  and  he  saw  Emily  Stedman  quite 
vividly  now.  It  was  true,  what  Redding  had  said,  that  it 
was  a  good  chance  for  a  story.  On  one  side  "The  Cuckoo" 
—  sensational  —  glaring  —  scarlet-bound ;  on  the  other, 
Emily  Stedman,  with  smooth  hair  and  sharp,  pale  features. 
As  in  the  photograph,  the  eyes  were  the  original  touch  — 
the  thing  that  differentiated  her  from  other  pale  ladies  living 
alone  in  New  England  towns.  And  the  tall,  blond  young 
man  with  the  obviously  metropolitan  clothes  was  a  sort  of 
cousin  which  the  usual  spinster  didn't  have  at  her  beck  and 
call.  The  representative  of  the  Star  saw  in  the  story  he 
had  been  sent  to  obtain  the  possibilities  of  real  art.  If 
he  could  get  the  atmosphere  of  Miss  Stedman's  house  — 
the  shabby,  weather-stained,  little  yellow  house  which 
surprisingly  contained  this  great,  dim  room  with  dark- 
curtained  windows  and  massive  furniture .  .  . 

"You  have  exquisite  things,"  he  ventured. 

"One  or  two  —  yes." 

"This  room  is  just  as  your  father  left  it?" 

"No,  with  him  it  was  quite  bare  —  arranged  for  his 
biology  with  metal  tables  and  that  sort  of  thing.  My 
cousin,  Mrs.  Parrish,  gave  me  all  this.  She  knows  I  care 
about  having  things  I  like  —  she  knows  how  much  it  really 
matters  to  me.  In  certain  chairs  I  feel  insignificant;  in 
certain  rooms  I  feel  altogether  wrong;  but  here  I've 
managed  with  her  help  . .  .  Why,  in  that  chair  over  there," 
Miss  Stedman  pointed  —  "  the  big  one  with  the  carvings, 
I  feel  myself  quite  splendid  !" 

"You  feel  in  yourself  a  change?" 


THE   CUCKOO  31 

"  Yes.    But  I  mustn't  talk  about  myself." 

"Yourself,  I  assure  you,  is  the  very  thing  I'm  here  to 
make  you  talk  about." 

"It's  an  intimate  personal  sketch  that  you're  after  — 
the  sort  of  thing  that  my  work  can't  give?" 

Redding  had  said  something  of  that  nature.  The  words, 
intimate  and  personal,  always  fell  easily  from  his  lips ;  but 
Redding's  ambassador  was  unprepared  to  be  so  soon  dis 
covered.  "  You've  always  lived  at  Hornmouth  ?  " 

"Always." 

"Then,  of  course,  you've  been  to  college  here?" 

"No,  I've  never  been  to  college." 

"Now,  that's  interesting,  —  the  daughter  of  a  scientific 
man  who's  lived  all  her  life  in  a  college  town  and  hasn't 
been  herself  to  college.  Perhaps  you  don't  believe  in  the 
higher  education  of  woman?" 

"It's  the  very  thing  that  I  believe  in  most." 

"Yet  in  'The  Cuckoo'  you  make  it  out  a  failure." 

"Oh,  in  'The  Cuckoo'  I  make  everything  out  a  failure  !" 

"I  don't  think  you  at  all  realize  what  a  sensation  your 
book  has  created.  It's  the  sensation  of  the  hour.  You've 
done  what  we're  all  striving  for  —  it's  extraordinary  — 
extraordinary." 

Miss  Stedman  smiled.  "It  is  rather  extraordinary,  isn't 
it?  I  think  it's  because  I  came  at  it  from  the  outside." 

"The  outside?  "    The  inquirer  was  in  darkness. 

"Besides,  'The  Cuckoo'  was  written  with  a  purpose." 

"Really?  Why,  I  thought  it  singularly  without  a  moral 
lesson." 

"  It  at  least  pays  my  railroad  fare  away  from  Hornmouth ; 
and  isn't  that  a  purpose?" 


32  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

The  representative  of  the  New  York  Star  found  Miss 
Stedman  herself  quite  as  extraordinary  as  the  fact  of  her 
having  written  "The  Cuckoo." 

A 

III 

"The  Cuckoo"  did  rather  more  than  pay  Miss  Stedman's 
railway  fare  from  Hornmouth.  She,  who  for  her  luxuries 
had  feasted  on  the  crumbs  which  fell  from  the  moderately 
stocked  table  of  the  Parrishes,  and  for  her  necessities  had 
depended  on  the  scant  income  of  a  college  professor,  now 
found  herself,  at  least  according  to  the  standards  of  the 
place  she  was  leaving,  a  woman  of  wealth.  Yet  she 
wasn't  unduly  elated.  She  had  merely  done  the  thing 
which  she  had  set  out  to  do,  and  this  didn't  strike  her  as 
rare.  Two  years  before  she  had  stood  at  her  father's 
grave  and  watched  the  dark,  rain-soaked  earth  being  thrown 
over  the  coffin.  It  had  rained,  she  remembered,  for  many 
days,  and  her  new,  cheap  mourning  was  splashed  with  mud. 
Her  black  gloves  were  sticky  with  moisture,  and  the  tails 
of  the  undertaker's  horses  drooped.  She  had  turned  away 
with  a  fierce  determination.  Tears,  not  of  grief,  but  of  excite 
ment  came  into  her  eyes.  She  had  gone  back  to  the  little 
yellow  house  and  with  her  own  tired  hands  cleared  away 
the  rows  of  books,  the  metal  tables,  the  queer  pink  contents 
of  the  glass  j ars.  She  brushed  the  mud  from  her  new  clothes 
and  folded  them  away.  The  next  day  "The  Cuckoo"  was 
begun. 

It  was  not  her  first  book.  There  had  been  another,  "The 
Blind  Alley,"  blind  in  more  ways  than  one ;  and  two  or  three 
inarticulate  masses,  —  as  inarticulate  as  the  contents  of  the 
glass  jars,  —  ideas  worked  at  beyond  all  hope  of  clearness 


THE   CUCKOO  33 

or  abandoned  in  mid-ocean  at  the  call  of  another  vessel. 
And  then  came  the  glaring,  flagrant  "Cuckoo,"  the  book 
written  with  a  purpose.  "The  Cuckoo"  was  the  essence 
—  consciously  extracted  —  of  Emily  Stedman's  vulgarity. 
Dr.  Guthrie,  the  librarian  of  Hornmouth,  had  once  called 
her  a  dreamer.  There  are  dreamers  whose  dreams  are  of 
the  past  and  dreamers  whose  dreams  are  of  the  future. 
Emily  never  considered  that  she  had  a  past  to  dream  about. 
But  every  one,  even  a  man  on  the  eve  of  being  hanged,  has 
at  least  the  possibility  of  a  future.  At  fourteen  Emily's 
future  was  all  before  her;  at  thirty  it  was  still  the  thing 
she  thought  about  —  the  thing  which  mattered.  Hers  was 
the  creative  as  distinguished  from  the  historical  mind.  It 
was  the  undiscovered  country  that  was  to  her  the  country 
of  romance,  the  book  she  hadn't  read  that  seemed  alive, 
the  place  she  hadn't  been  to  that  was  fraught  with  memories. 
She  left  Hornmouth,  the  place  she'd  been  to  all  her  life, 
without  a  single  look  back.  For  her  it  was  as  done  for  as 
a  scientific  manual  which  has  outlived  its  period.  She 
said  good-by  to  Miss  Smith,  whose  spectacles  contained 
a  more  magnifying  lens  than  when  she  had  first  noticed 
them;  and  to  Dr.  Guthrie,  whose  skullcap  now  served  a 
purpose  other  than  ornamental.  She  observed  that  the 
professors  at  Hornmouth  seemed  to  grow  older  with  the 
years  and  the  students  younger.  The  new  House  of  Me 
chanics  had  surrendered  its  claim  of  newness  to  a  still  more 
glittering  structure,  and  the  upper  railroad  station  had 
been  done  away  with  altogether.  But,  nevertheless,  the 
Hornmouth  that  at  the  age  of  thirty  Emily  bade  a  perfunc 
tory  farewell  to  was  very  much  the  same  Hornmouth  she 
had  attempted  to  leave  at  the  age  of  fourteen  without 


34  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

any  farewell  at  all.  And  she  herself  was  surprisingly  un 
changed. 

She  leaned  back  luxuriously  in  the  upholstered  seat  of  her 
Pullman  car.  She  was  getting  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
undiscovered  country  —  farther  and  farther  from  the  one 
whence  she  had  come.  In  an  hour  she  would  be  in  Boston, 
and  after  Boston,  New  York.  She  had  been  to  Boston 
before.  She  knew  its  crowded,  wavering  streets  and  vine- 
covered  houses.  It  always  seemed  to  her  merely  a  sort  of 
glorified  Hornmouth,  a  Hornmouth  suddenly  waked  one 
morning  to  find  itself  the  possessor  of  theatres  and  shops  and 
great  noisy  railways.  She  had  never  been  to  New  York. 
She  was  glad  now  that  she  hadn't ;  it  would  burst  upon  her 
with  a  full  freshness  of  impression.  Her  projected  vision 
of  it  was  of  a  place  altogether  gorgeous,  —  a  city  of  towering 
buildings  and  wide,  smooth  streets,  —  a  vortex  of  perpetual 
motion  revolving  in  a  strangely  mingled  glare  of  sunlight 
and  electricity.  It  was  the  vision  she  had  solidified  in 
"The  Cuckoo." 

She  watched  the  sunlight  flickering  on  the  gayly  patterned 
carpet.  It  was  a  carpet  brave  in  reds  and  greens  and 
it  clashed  vigorously  with  the  polished  woodwork.  The 
stiff  plush  curtains  made  still  another  note  of  color.  And 
not  content  with  that,  there  was  an  ornate  decoration  of 
inlaid  yellow  which  appeared  at  well-chosen  intervals  as 
a  sort  of  frieze.  The  whole  car  was  as  hideous  as  ill-guided 
ingenuity  could  make  it,  and  yet  the  worshipper  of  beauty 
liked  it  —  perhaps  she  went  back  to  the  original  intention 
of  the  designer,  which  was  undoubtedly  to  convey  a  sense 
of  abounding  luxury.  She'd  had  little  enough  of  luxury 
in  the  past,  and  the  gay  colors  and  polished  woods  sym- 


THE  CUCKOO  35 

bolized  that  future  which  was  all  before  her.  She  felt 
herself  rushing  in  barbaric  splendor  through  the  austere 
New  England  landscape.  The  very  vibration  of  the  mo 
tion  gave  her  pleasure ;  yet  any  one  placed  in  such  a  way 
that  they  could  not  see  her  widely  staring  eyes  might  have 
thought  that  she  was  dozing.  She  might  have  been  suf 
fering  from  the  reaction  following  some  high  emotion ;  and 
her  black  clothes  —  the  same  which  she  had  so  forehandedly 
folded  away  two  years  before  —  would  have  seemed  to 
make  this  latter  assumption  more  than  possible.  She 
was,  in  a  sense,  fresh  from  the  presence  of  death.  For  her, 
Hornmouth  was  death,  and  the  rushing  train  and  the  un 
discovered  country  towards  which  it  was  taking  her  was  the 
reverse  side  of  the  medal. 

Opposite  her  were  two  boys,  Hornmouth  students  of  the 
newer  type  —  fresh-faced  lads  whose  pursuit  of  knowledge 
sat  upon  them  but  lightly.  It  was  plain  from  their  talk 
that  they  also  were  bound  for  New  York.  They  discussed 
at  some  length  the  error  of  having  spent  a  dollar  on  their 
Pullman  seats.  A  dollar  in  New  York  would  appear  to 
bring  larger  returns.  It  seemed  to  be  a  city  of.  perpetual 
joy,  and  over  this  joy  there  reigned  a  lady  of  their  unmis 
takably  intimate  acquaintance  by  the  name  of  Anna. 
Anna  was  apprised  of  their  coming  and  would  be  waiting 
for  them  with  outstretched  arms.  There  was  another  lady 
named  Alexandra  —  but  no  —  Alexandra  was  the  name 
of  a  theatre  —  a  theatre  where  Anna  sang.  Anna's  singing 
was  something  which  the  whole  town  sat  up  for ;  Anna  made 
it  sit  up.  Miss  Stedman  couldn't  understand  why  Anna 
didn't  sing  at  an  earlier  hour.  This  lack  of  comprehension 
from  the  author  of  "The  Cuckoo" ! 


36  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

The  author  of  "The  Cuckoo"  liked  youth  —  youth  in  the 
abstract.  Youth  closer  than  that  was  sometimes  disap 
pointing.  But  these  boys  were  not  closer  than  the  other 
side  of  the  aisle,  and  their  talk  —  financial  and  theatrical 
—  amused  her.  She  wondered  a  little  at  the  vastness  of 
their  experience.  Birds  of  such  plumage  had  no  need  of  the 
enlightenment  of  an  institution  of  learning.  Its  chief  use, 
they  seemed  to  think,  was  the  chance  it  offered  for  saving 
money  to  spend  in  the  city  of  joy.  And  then,  again  a  men 
tion  of  the  dollar  wasted  on  their  Pullman  seats.  There 
was  another  dollar,  irretrievably  gone,  though  not,  from 
their  talk,  quite  wasted.  One  of  them  had  bought  a  book 
which  he  said  that  the  other  could  not  appreciate.  This 
statement  was  productive  of  argument.  Their  listener 
heard  her  father's  name.  Was  it  biology  they  were  dis 
cussing  ?  They  were  strangely  going  to  ask  Anna's  opinion. 
Anna  was  evidently  a  lady  of  versatility.  Again  the  name, 
Stedman.  It  was  too  much  —  Miss  Stedman  turned  her 
head.  There  was  a  sudden  quiet,  and  two  young  men  who 
hadn't,  for  all  their  wisdom,  forgotten  how  to  blush. 

"By  George!    That's  her!—" 

In  the  excitement  of  the  moment,  grammar  was  unre- 
spected. 

Emily  Stedman  wondered  if  this  were  fame.  It  was  fame 
not  sufficiently  abstract.  She  had  taken  the  thing  she 
cared  about  and  thrown  it  upon  the  world  twisted  and  mis 
shapen,  and  she  now  surprised  the  world  in  the  act  of  receiv 
ing  it.  Her  eyes  met  the  eyes  of  the  two  boys.  Her 
embarrassment  rose  to  theirs.  She  felt  herself,  with  her 
pale  little  face  and  straight  black  dress,  inadequate  to  the 
situation.  She  should  have  been  clothed  in  scarlet  like  her 


THE  CUCKOO  37 

book.    As  the  author  of  "The  Cuckoo"  she  was  an  object 
to  excite  mirth. 

rv 

All  day  heat  had  held  the  city  in  its  grasp.  It  was  the 
strong,  unworn  heat  of  early  June,  and  the  city  could  do 
nothing  but  limply  wait  to  be  released.  A  little  before  sun 
down  there  was  thunder  and  lightning  and  straight,  cool 
rain,  and  then  a  clearing  wind.  Mopping  handkerchiefs 
came  down  from  perspiring  brows ;  wilting  collars  straight 
ened  to  almost  their  former  stiffness;  horses  lifted  their 
tired  heads  and  trotted  out  briskly;  the  clanging  bell  of 
an  electric  car  sounded  shrilly  on  the  freshened  air.  There 
was  a  banging  of  doors  and  a  craning  of  necks  out  of  win 
dows.  Everywhere  the  city  stretched  its  cramped  muscles 
and  went  on  at  quickened  stride.  Even  the  great,  puffing 
trains  that  rumbled  their  way  out  from  the  Grand  Central 
Station  seemed  to  puff  and  rumble  with  a  greater  energy. 
The  station  itself  was  clogged  with  humanity;  the  wide 
mosaic  floor  trod  and  retrod  by  thousands  of  feet.  Men 
and  women  and  children  came  in  and  out  of  the  constantly 
swinging  glass  doors.  Everywhere  there  was  a  sense  of 
hurry  and  of  noise.  It  was  as  if  the  heat  and  the  storm  had 
galvanized  the  city,  and  it  had  rushed,  on  the  new  power 
of  its  wings,  to  the  Grand  Central  Station. 

But  Ralph  Parrish  hadn't  rushed.  He  had  come  there 
very  deliberately  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  his  cousin. 
Her  train  was  late.  He  waited.  It  was  the  merest  luck, 
his  being  in  New  York.  He  lived  there,  it  is  true,  but  he  was 
the  kind  of  young  man  whose  habitation  is  simply  his  base 
of  supplies.  It  would  seem  almost  as  though  he  lived  in  a 


38  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

place  very  much  as  some  people  many  — to  have  it  off 
his  mind.  Distances  didn't  exist  for  him.  Paris,  Russia, 
even  Hornmouth,  were  equally  within  his  range.  And 
his  occupation  favored  his  nomadic  tendencies;  he  was 
connected  with  the  tanning  of  pelts  —  he  was  the  junior 
partner  in  a  firm  of  wholesale  fur  dealers.  He  had  no  hand 
in  the  actual  trapping  of  the  animals,  neither  did  he  stand 
behind  a  counter  and  sell  the  finished  product ;  but  he  filled 
one  of  the  intermediate  niches  of  the  industry  exceedingly 
well.  He  filled  everything  well  — one  couldn't  conceive 
that  he  ever  might  do  anything  else. 

Nature,  in  the  excitement  of  working  in  the  large  —  in 
the  unaccustomed  thrill  of  a  profusion  of  magnificent  ma 
terials—had,  with  Ralph  Parrish,  bungled  a  little  the 
details.  To  say  that  he  was  handsomer  at  first  glance  than 
at  second,  seems,  to  one  who  hasn't  had  the  wonderful 
privilege  of  that  first  glance,  to  be  damning  with  faint  praise. 
Without  being  in  the  least  effeminate,  he  had  a  sort  of  beauty 
which  is  more  often  possessed  by  women  than  by  men  — 
a  beauty  which  benumbs  (fortunately)  all  faculty  of  criti 
cism.  It  could  no  more  be  analyzed  than  could  be  given, 
after  an  icy  plunge,  the  exact  temperature  of  the  water. 
His  very  lack  of  finish  —  absence  of  detail  —  might  easily 
be  mistaken  for  ruggedness  and  strength.  It  saved  him 
from  the  slightest  aspect  of  indecision.  He  had  gone 
through  all  the  stages  of  youth  with  colors  flying;  he  had 
been  a  beautiful  baby,  a  superb  child,  a  splendid  boy,  and 
he  now  was  a  man  that  most  men  and  all  women  turned  to 
look  at.  His  thirty  years  of  life  merely  intensified  and 
made  more  clear  the  fact  of  his  being  an  extraordinary 
start. 


THE   CUCKOO  39 

Parrish  waited  for  his  cousin  in  that  part  of  the  station 
called  the  concourse,  the  half-enclosed,  cagelike  structure 
where  the  trains  come  in  and  out.  He  succeeded  in  stand 
ing  a  little  apart  —  a  little  out  of  the  way  of  the  rushing 
stream  of  humanity.  Humanity  in  the  mass  bored  him; 
many  things  bored  him ;  one  of  the  reasons  that  he  liked 
his  cousin,  one  of  the  reasons  that  he  was  waiting  for  her 
now,  was  that  she  never  bored  him.  She  always  had  for 
him  a  quality  of  surprise;  she  affected  him  very  much  as 
the  thunderstorm  affected  the  wilted  city  —  she  quickened 
his  heavy  pulse.  Though  at  the  comparison  of  herself  to 
a  thunderstorm,  little  Emily  Stedman  would  have  been 
the  first  to  laugh.  It  may  have  been  the  reason  of  his  cool 
ness  and  freshness  —  his  attitude  of  aloofness.  He  had 
within  him  the  possibility  of  so  much  action,  and  half  the 
time  he  didn't  bother  with  it.  The  people  were  rare  who, 
like  Emily,  had  seen  him  bloodstained  and  mudstreaked 
—  hot  from  battle. 

He  took  out  his  watch.  Twenty  minutes  late,  the  guard 
had  told  him,  and  it  was  past  that  now.  He  grew  impa 
tient.  He  stood  back  of  the  waiting  people,  his  head  raised 
above  theirs.  The  great  iron  gate  slid  wide.  The  train  at 
last,  thank  heaven,  was  in  !  A  slow  procession  came  up  the 
long  platform,  and  he  scanned  it  for  a  little  woman  in  black. 
But  there  were  many  little  women  in  black ;  smallness  and 
blackness  seemed  the  rule.  During  his  search  his  eye  was 
caught  by  an  object  which  obviously  wouldn't  assist  it. 
It  was  an  object  —  he  couldn't  at  the  moment  class  it  more 
exactly  —  which  seemed  to  emanate  from  the  high  crown 
of  a  lady's  hat.  It  was  moving  up  the  platform  rather 
behind  the  rest  of  the  procession,  and  in  color  was  like  an 


40  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

Irishman's  flag  on  St.  Patrick's  Day.  Parrish  had  it  now, 
—  it  was  a  feather,  —  a  green  feather  set  at  an  angle  defying 
all  the  laws  of  gravity.  He  still  vainly  searched  for  the 
little  woman  in  black ;  but  none  suited  him,  and  out  of  so 
many  he  surely  might  have  chosen.  The  green  feather  was 
lost  to  sight.  His  attention  was  again  diverted  from  his 
true  quest.  But  no,  the  green  feather  had  appeared  again 
as  aggressive  as  ever,  and  nearer.  It  had  come  to  a  stop 
before  him.  The  hat  it  arose  from  so  bravely  was  worn  by 
his  cousin. 

"Well,  Ralph,  don't  you  know  me?" 

"My  dearest  Emmy!" 

The  hat  itself  was  a  marvel.  The  hair  beneath  it  was 
even  more  bewildering.  A  storm  of  puffs  and  curls  caught 
and  moulded  in  blackened  bronze.  And  then  the  sharp 
white  face  with  the  exaggerated  eyes  and  the  slim  figure 
in  the  plain  black  dress. 

"You're  late." 

"Am  I?  I  found  that  in  Boston  I  had  two  hours  to 
spare." 

"Is  Boston  the  origin  of  that?" 

"That?" 

"The  new  gorgeousness." 

"Yes;  do  you  like  it?" 

"It  takes  away  from  the  lovely  appearance  of  virtue 
which  your  company  usually  lends  one."  Parrish  burst 
out  into  loud,  faunlike  laughter.  "Now  one  will  have  to 
expiate  one's  sins  in  some  other  way." 

"Isn't  my  company  expiation  enough,  even  with  gor 
geousness?  Oh,  Ralph,  Ralph,  it's  good  to  be  here,  and 
it's  good  to  be  with  you  — " 


THE   CUCKOO  41 

There  was  a  question  of  Emily's  hotel,  quiet,  as  best 
suited  a  lady  alone.  Ralph  would  escort  her  there;  but 
they  would  dine  first. 

Emily's  first  view  of  New  York  was  the  usual  one  from 
the  steps  of  the  station.  Except  to  native  New  Yorkers 
it's  either  that,  usually,  or  the  view  from  the  harbor;  and 
Emily,  in  her  intense  appreciation,  had  no  regret  for  the 
more  picturesque  prelude.  The  dusk  of  the  long  summer's 
afternoon  was  fading  into  night,  and  lights  were  beginning 
to  gleam  out  in  rows  and  circles  and  patches.  Yet  it 
wasn't  a  glare  of  electricity  —  Emily  noticed  that.  The 
wide  street  gave  an  effect  of  dimness,  and  the  soft,  fresh 
smell  which  the  storm  had  left  might  almost  have  been 
the  smell  of  rain-soaked  earth.  She  had  a  sense  of  never 
having  been  so  close  to  nature.  It  was  nature  in  a  new 
aspect. 

They  dined  in  a  place  of  marble  and  gold.  It  was  much 
more  the  New  York  of  "The  Cuckoo"  than  was  the  dim, 
wide  street  they  had  left ;  and  even  here  she  felt  that  "The 
Cuckoo"  hadn't  quite  hit  it  off.  Her  projected  vision  had 
gone  wide  of  the  mark  —  it  moved  on  jerking  wires.  They 
drove  to  her  hotel,  and  passed  on  the  way  the  two  Horn- 
mouth  boys,  also  driving.  With  them  was  an  elaborate 
young  woman  who  might  have  been  Anna.  Emily  recog 
nized  them  and  felt  less  a  stranger.  The  city  was  hold 
ing  out  kindly,  welcoming  arms  to  her ;  and  later,  alone  in 
her  hotel,  with  her  bag  unpacked  and  her  body  cleansed 
of  the  dust  of  travel,  her  gratitude  verged  on  the  senti 
mental.  She  was  a  visionary,  —  a  sentimentalist  of  the 
future,  —  and  to  her  the  only  true  home-coming  was  into  a 
new  place.  There  she  was,  up  twelve  stories  in  the  air  in  a 


42  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

room  of  flowered  paper  and  mahogany ;  and  on  her  bed  was 
tossed  a  vivid  green  hat.  It  returned  her  contemplative 
gaze,  unblinking.  As  it  lay  there  with  the  curling  feather 
it  resembled  a  bird  of  strange  plumage.  The  resemblance 
moved  the  author  of  "The  Cuckoo"  to  a  rather  lonely 
hilarity. 


CHAPTER  III 

VENUS  ANADYOMENE 


THE  Duke  de  Clopin  lay  in  his  berth  looking  out  at  the 
blue  disk  of  ocean  presented  by  his  port-hole.  It  was  a 
bright  blue,  and  with  a  movement  in  its  brightness  which 
suggested  both  sun  and  wind.  Sometimes  the  paler  blue 
of  the  sky  would  descend  and  slice  away  the  upper  half  of 
this  disk  of  ocean,  and  sometimes  a  white  sail  would  destroy 
it  altogether.  The  duke  was  conscious  of  a  gentle  rocking 
like  the  motion  of  a  ship  at  anchor  in  a  breeze.  And  it 
gradually  dawned  on  his  awakening  reason  that  as  a  matter 
of  fact  the  Jungfrau  was  at  anchor.  Her  captain  had  told 
him  only  the  day  before  that  at  Larnaca  in  the  island  of 
Cyprus  they  were  to  stop  for  coal.  The  Jungfrau  needed 
that  commodity  with  startling  frequency,  but  the  duke  was 
not  a  man  groaning  under  a  weight  of  bills.  His  wife  was 
one  of  the  richest  women  in  France.  The  marriage  of 
Lilla  Rothelieu  and  Maurice,  Duke  de  Clopin,  almost 
attained  the  dignity  of  an  alliance.  But  Lilla  was  not 
proud;  she  was  fond  of  her  husband,  adored  her  yacht, 
and  worshipped  at  the  feet  of  her  American  friend,  Mrs. 
Dench. 

In  this  last  she  was  not  alone.  Mrs.  Dench  was  the  wo 
man,  neither  very  young  nor  very  old,  very  beautiful  nor 
very  ugly,  who  had  ended  a  rather  protracted  visit  to  a 

43 


44  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

book-shop  by  purchasing  "The  Cuckoo."  Her  husband, 
Christopher  Dench,  had  been  in  the  diplomatic  service; 
and  since  his  death  his  widow  had  more  than  kept  up  with 
the  high  powers  of  the  land.  She  was  one  of  the  lesser 
marvels  of  civilized  Europe,  and  no  one  could  have  told  you 
why.  The  Duchess  de  Clopin  worshipped  at  her  feet :  the 
duchess  was  aware  in  herself  of  certain  indecisions,  certain 
lacks ;  her  wealth  and  rank  had  the  strange  effect  of  making 
her  almost  painfully  modest ;  she  felt  herself  born  to  a  con- 
spicuousness  to  which  she  was  inadequate ;  and  Mrs.  Dench, 
who  had  been  bora  to  nothing,  would  have  been  so  ade 
quate  to  a  conspicuousness  the  most  exalted.  Yet  she  was 
neither  young  nor  beautiful,  and  the  length  of  her  mouth 
always  surprised  one  afresh.  The  Jungfrau  rarely  made  a 
voyage  without  her.  No  one,  so  the  duchess  said,  could  so 
quiet  the  many  nerves  of  Mme.  Rostov,  no  one  could  so 
amuse  the  Princess  Karina,  and  surely  no  one  could  manage 
the  gentlemen  of  the  party  with  so  competent  a  hand. 
The  duke  shared  his  wife's  admiration.  Some  people  went 
so  far  as  to  say  that  it  was  his  wife  who,  like  a  good  wife, 
shared  his.  But  people  said  very  little  about  Mrs.  Dench, 
considering  her  happy  gift  for  conspicuousness.  Perhaps 
it  was  just  that  —  she  was  so  constantly  on  view  that  they 
didn't  have  the  opportunity. 

The  duke  put  out  his  hand  and  touched  an  electric  button 
at  the  side  of  his  berth.  He  touched  it  twice.  That  was 
a  signal  for  his  breakfast  to  be  brought  to  him.  Formerly 
he  had  breakfasted  on  deck.  That  morning  hour,  the  shin 
ing,  brass-trimmed  deck,  the  little  racing  waves  and  the 
smooth  tropic  sky,  —  and  no  one  to  disturb  his  peace  in 
these,  —  had  nerved  him  for  the  long  day.  He  often  won- 


45 

dered  why  the  day  seemed  so  long  and  that  hour  so  short. 
And  then  the  precious  hour  had  been  spoiled  —  ruined  — 
desecrated  —  by  a  tall  young  woman  who  gazed  at  the  duke, 
the  ocean  and  the  sky  with  an  equal  gravity.  She  was 
Mrs.  Bench's  daughter,  and  the  duke  gave  up  his  hour  and 
breakfasted  in  his  stateroom.  Mrs.  Bench  had  once  called 
her  daughter  a  problem ;  that  was  well  and  good,  the  duke 
thought,  but  it  was  unnecessary  that  she  make  a  problem 
of  other  people.  He  refused  to  be  analyzed  and  judged. 
Emily  Stedman  found  the  young  gay.  The  duke  found 
them  grave. 

"And  I'm  not  sure,"  he  had  said  to  Mrs.  Bench,  "that 
they  are  not  nearer  to  the  eternal  verities  than  we. 
Laughter  is,  after  all,  merely  our  recognition  of  the  absurdi 
ties  of  fate.  A  creature  like  your  daughter,  —  dewy  with 
innocence,  —  what  does  she  know  of  the  absurdities  of 
fate?  She  regards  us  all  as  miserable  sinners;  she  judges 
us  by  her  own  exquisite  standards  — " 

"I'm  afraid  you  make  my  daughter  out  a  prig !" 

"Ah  — no— " 

"Well,  even  if  you  did,  I  would  see  what  you  meant. 
I  can't  begin  to  apologize  enough  for  having  forced  her 
upon  you ;  but  it  resolved  itself  into  a  question  of  her  com 
ing  or  my  not  coming.  The  nuns  tell  me  they  have  taught 
her  everything  they  know;  there  is  no  reason  for  her  being 
with  them  longer,  and  schools  I  mistrust.  But  really  she 
doesn't  bother,  does  she?  She  is  quite  content  to  sit  by 
herself,  and  she  goes  to  bed  early." 

"Bother!"  The  duke  was  horrified.  "She  gives  to  us 
a  distinction  which  even  the  princess  can't  give.  But 
have  the  nuns  really  taught  her  everything  they  know? 


46  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

Was  that  the  only  reason,  dear  lady?  Between  friends 
there  should  be  absolute  frankness.  I  thought  that  perhaps 
the  presence  here  of  young  Gadillon  might  have  some 
thing—" 

"I  thought  of  that;  but  Jane  won't  look  at  him.  She 
thinks  he's  vile  —  unspeakable ;  she  finds  an  obstacle  in 
Mme.  Rostov,  as  if  there  were  not  always  a  Mme.  Rostov. 
What  is  a  poor  mother  to  do  with  a  penniless  daughter  who 
has  views  ?  I  think  that  some  day  I  shall  take  her  back 
to  America  —  to  Ohio." 

"Ohio?  " 

"  Yes;  I  once  lived  in  Ohio.    I  believe  I  was  born  there." 

"And  Jane?" 

"  Oh,  Jane  was  born  in  Vienna.  There's  the  absurdity  of 
fate,  if  you  like." 

"Jane  is  still  young." 

"She  will  recover  from  that." 

"And  she  has  beauty." 

"Yes,  she's  decorative  enough.  She  ought  to  be  on  a 
ceiling  or  a  fresco  or  in  a  church  —  somewhere  where  she 
would  have  no  other  work  in  life  but  to  look  out  upon  a 
passing  world  with  those  big,  grave  eyes  of  hers." 

"But  she  does  that  as  it  is." 

,  "Ah —  you  don't  know  Jane!  She  has  views.  I'm 
always  expecting  her  to  do  something  wholly  weird  —  join 
the  Salvation  Army  —  something  like  that.  As  it  is,  she 
brings  in  stray  cats  and  dogs.  In  Paris  last  spring  our 
rooms  were  overrun  with  them ;  I  had  to  put  a  stop  to  it, — 
the  proprietor  complained.  I  do  not  know  which  would 
be  worse,  stray  animals  or  the  Salvation  Army.  Imagine 
me  with  a  daughter  in  the  Salvation  Army !" 


VENUS  ANADYOMENE  47 

The  duke,  imprisoned  in  his  stateroom,  amused  himself 
while  he  breakfasted  by  recalling  this  talk  with  Mrs.  Bench. 
Talks  with  Mrs.  Dench  were  always  worthy  of  recall.  And 
the  daughter  evidently  lacked  humor.  He  imagined  her 
now  with  her  grave  gaze  bent  upon  Cyprus.  Cyprus  was 
out  of  the  duke's  range  of  vision ;  his  stateroom  faced  the 
open  sea.  The  name  had  a  certain  music,  —  Cyprus  — 
Cyprus,  —  he  repeated  it  over  to  himself.  It  was  supposed 
by  the  ancients  to  be  the  birthplace  of  Venus.  He  toyed 
with  the  supposition.  He  remembered  a  picture  at  the 
spring  Salon  of  a  large  woman  who  balanced  with  surprising 
firmness  on  the  crest  of  a  wave  and  smiled  fixedly  at  a 
bewitched  fisherman.  It  was  called  "La  Naissance  de 
Venus,"  but  suggested,  rather,  the  birth  of  a  new  era  at 
bathing  resorts.  The  true  birth  of  Venus,  thought  the  duke, 
is  in  our  own  souls.  But  the  old  myth  had  a  charm.  He 
mused  for  a  space  on  the  personality  of  the  goddess .  .  . 
Neither  very  young  nor  very  old,  he  imagined  her,  and  with 
a  beauty  of  such  an  original  sort  that  it  was  —  more  than 
beauty  —  a  great  vital  force.  The  duke  admired  sheer 
physical  strength.  He  lay  back  among  his  pillows,  and  his 
thin-lidded  eyes  closed.  Venus  would  arise  from  the  sea, 
parting  the  waters  on  either  side  —  the  island  of  Cyprus  — 
the  blue  water  on  either  side  .  .  . 

There  was  the  loud  sound  of  shouting.  It  grew  more  in 
sistent  —  a  babble  of  tongues.  The  voice  of  Mrs.  Dench 
and  the  ascendant  present  rose  clear  above  the  phantom 
voices  of  the  duke's  dream.  Mrs.  Dench  was  standing 
in  the  narrow  passageway  between  the  staterooms  and  talk 
ing  to  some  one  within.  She  was  in  a  condition  of  high 
excitement. 


48  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"There's  an  enormous  white  yacht-  "  she  rolled  the 
V  richly  —  "enormous  —  and  she's  flying  the  American 
ig!" 
Truly,  the  voice  of  the  ascendant  present. 


ii 


"If  you  knew  how  bored  I  was,  if  you  knew  how  un 
speakably  bored  I  was,  you  would  not  hesitate  to  send  for 
the  people  on  the  big  white  yacht."  The  Princess  Karma 
turned  to  her  hostess :  "  If  they  were  not  Americans,  I  would 
not  ask  it ;  but  Americans  are  always  respectable  — 
always  —  and  always  amusing.  Dear  Lilla,  you  must 
send  for  them;  I  ask  it.  Mme.  Rostov  and  I  are  bored  to 
distraction.  Are  you  not  bored,  Mme.  Rostov?  No?  — 
Well,  you  are  young;  you  have  a  man,  you  always  have  a 
man  —  last  winter  it  was  that  young  American  man,  so 
very  handsome,  M.  Parrish.  Now  it  is  M.  Gadillon  —  al 
ways  some  one.  But  I  have  no  man ;  I  am  old  and  ugly  and 
not  even  rich.  I  must  be  constantly  amused.  I  can  make 
people  amuse  me  —  yes,  I  can  at  least  do  that.  Ah,  you 
think  I  am  a  rude  old  woman,  saying  I  am  bored  on  your 
beautiful  ship,  and  the  sea  air  so  good  for  me  !" 

In  her  day  the  Princess  Karina  herself  was  beautiful. 
That  day  was  past.  In  her  day  the  fact  of  her  rank  was 
the  least  important  fact  about  her.  That  day  was  also 
past.  In  her  day,  besides  beauty,  she  had  wit  and  grace 
and  distinction.  Her  wit  had  curdled,  her  grace  had  fled, 
but  her  distinction  had,  if  anything,  increased.  As  she  sat 
in  her  low  wicker  chair,  with  a  background  of  sea  and  sky 
and  all  around  her  gayety,  and  at  least  a  semblance  of  youth, 
she  gave  an  impression  of  extreme  age  —  age  so  ruthless 


VENUS   ANADYOMENE  49 

and  so  appalling  that  it  didn't  at  all  suggest  the  passivity 
of  approaching  death.  She  came  from  a  hard  soil,  —  a 
harder  soil  than  those  about  her,  —  and  she  made  no  com 
promise  with  time.  Her  black  wig  rivalled  the  raven's  wing 
to  which  her  hair  had  formerly  been  compared ;  her  cheek, 
of  the  tone  of  dried  leather,  was  firmly  touched  with  ver 
milion.  The  effect  produced  was  that  of  a  warring  Indian. 

Mme.  Rostov  turned  her  lovely  head  and  looked  out  to 
sea.  On  one  side  of  her  sat  the  princess,  on  the  other 
M.  Gadillon;  that  was  compromise  in  its  purest  essence. 
Compromise,  to  Mme.  Rostov,  was  as  the  breath  of  her 
nostrils.  She  compromised  with  her  dressmaker  and  with 
M.  Gadillon ;  she  even  —  unlike  the  princess  —  compromised 
with  time.  Her  hair,  her  color,  her  figure,  were  a  succes 
sion  of  compromises.  She  finally  turned  from  the  sea  and 
let  her  charming  eyes  rest  full  upon  the  princess.  "It  is 
as  you  say  —  the  yacht  is  very  big  and  very  white,  but  for 
myself  I  am  content." 

"I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  be  content  in  your  content 
ment." 

The  princess's  temper  was  never  of  the  best ;  but  to-day 
she  felt  the  heat,  which  seemed  to  rise  in  spirals  from 
the  water.  On  the  Jungfrau's  awninged  deck  powerful 
mechanical  fans  stirred  the  warm  air  to  a  breeze ;  but  the 
wind  of  the  early  morning  had  died,  and  the  ocean  itself  was 
as  still  as  a  painted  drop  scene  at  the  theatre.  The  big 
white  yacht  with  the  American  flag  swung  her  bow  a  little, 
almost  as  slowly  as  the  hour-hand  of  a  clock.  The  sails 
of  the  queer  foreign  ships  hung  flat. 

Mme.  Rostov  threw  back  the  heaviest  of  her  white  veils. 
"Well,  what  does  Lilla  say?" 


50  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"Lilla  has  nothing  to  say." 

Their  conversation  was  carried  on  in  French  in  deference 
to  this  last-named  lady,  and  it  was  still  in  her  native  tongue 
that  she  presently  addressed  them:  "I  shall  write  a  note 
at  once,  and  they  shall  all  come  to  lunch.  Whoever  is  on 
that  yacht  will  have  the  opportunity  of  coming,  and  I  shall 
make  use  of  the  princess's  name." 

She  rose ;  but  Mrs.  Bench  was  on  her  feet  simultaneously. 
"Ah  —  stay  where  you  are  —  let  me  write  the  note. 
I  will  say  that  you  and  the  princess  desire  their  presence 
—  they  can't  refuse  —  and  it  will  be  in  English —  in  Eng 
lish  —  "  She  was  gone,  through  the  cabin  door. 

The  duchess  stared  after  her.  "Is  she  not  a  wonderful 
woman  ?  Jeanne !  Jeanne !  Come  here,  Jeanne !  How 
does  it  seem  to  have  a  mother  like  that  ?" 

Jane  Dench  didn't  respond.  She  was  out  of  range  of  the 
duchess's  sharp  French  voice.  In  fact,  if  she  hadn't  been 
so  far  off,  it  might  have  been  said  of  her  that  she  had  delib 
erately  turned  her  back  on  the  assembled  company.  She 
was  reading.  And  she  gave  to  her  book  a  concentration 
of  attention  which  raised  the  little  scarlet-bound  volume 
lying  in  her  lap  nearly  to  the  importance  of  the  crystal  ball 
upon  which  the  Eastern  mystic  focusses  his  thoughts. 
She  gave  herself  to  the  full  luxury  of  solitude.  The  duke, 
Lilla,  the  princess,  Mme.  Rostov,  M.  Gadillon;  the  three 
or  four  men  of  indeterminate  age,  nationality,  and  occupa 
tion  who  shed  upon  the  Jungfrau  the  light  of  their  complet 
ing  presences,  all  did  rather  more  than  bore  her.  As  Mrs. 
Dench  had  said,  what  was  a  poor  mother  to  do  with  a  pen 
niless  daughter  who  had  views  ?  Complete,  incontestable 
ugliness  would  have  been  preferable;  but  Jane  Dench 


VENUS  ANADYOMENE  51 

wasn't  ugly,  though  she  still  had  about  her  a  little  of  the 
abrupt  awkwardness  of  youth.  She  leaned  far  back  in 
her  steamer  chair,  and  there  was  something  almost  boyish 
in  the  bent  knee,  the  long,  sharp  angles  of  the  body. 

"Jeanne !  —  Jeanne !  — "  the  duchess  persisted. 

At  last  she  was  heard.  Jane  unfolded  herself  from  the 
complications  of  her  chair,  and  came  forward.  "Madame, 
a  thousand  pardons  —  you  were  calling  me?"  There  was 
surely  nothing  abrupt  in  her  manner.  It  had,  on  the  con 
trary,  a  kind  of  gentleness. 

"Yes,  Jeanne,  I  was  calling  you." 

There  was  a  silence  during  which  Jane  stood  looking 
down  at  her  hostess  and  including  in  her  grave,  expectant 
gaze  her  hostess's  guests.  She  was  as  strange  —  as  out  of 
key  with  her  surroundings  —  as  was  the  Princess  Karina. 
Lilla  hesitated  an  instant  longer.  "I  was  going  to  ask 
you  a  foolish  question,  Jeanne,  but  I  think  better  of  it. 
It  was  really  the  pleasure  of  your  company  that  I  desired. 
Tell  me,  what  is  your  book?" 

Jane  laughed.  "Oh,  it's  not  mine,  it's  yours!  Mother 
advised  me  not  to  read  it,  and  I  wasn't  reading  it.  But 
a  book  near  by  makes  one  feel  busier  —  thinking,  by  itself, 
is  such  a  fearful  waste  of  time." 

One  of  the  completing  men  became  interrogative. 
"What  do  you  think  about,  mademoiselle?  What  are  the 
thoughts  of  a  young  girl  ?  Ah  —  if  I  but  knew  them  !  — " 

"What  do  I  think  about  ?  —  To-day  I  was  thinking  about 
the  little  brown  men  in  the  boats." 

"Are  they  so  fascinating?" 

"No,  they're  dreadful;  but  it's  just  because  they're 
dreadful—" 


52  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"You  luxuriate  in  horrors?" 

"Never!" 

"Then  what?  " 

"They're  absolutely  foreign,  those  little  brown  creatures, 
foreign  to  anything  I  know  anything  about  —  and  yet 
there  they  are,  you  know;  they  exist." 

"Is  it  an  awakening  within  yourself  of  a  sense  of  your 
lack  of  knowledge?"  It  was  the  duke  who  spoke. 
"That  awakens  within  all  of  us,  that  sense.  But  think, 
my  dear  child,  how  much  wiser  you  are  than  others  of  your 
age  and  sex.  You  at  least  have  seen  the  little  brown  men. 
Think  of  the  people  that  you  have  seen.  Besides  this  charm 
ing  circle  you  know  the  good  nuns  at  the  convent;  you 
have  had  glimpses  of  society  —  society  in  all  its  phases 

—  you  have  had  advantages,  my  child,  rare  advantages 
for  studying  your  kind  —  for  observing  other  people.    We 
each  live  in  a  universe  of  our  own,  Mademoiselle  Jeanne, 
and  outside  our  universe  there  are  other  universes,  and 
beyond  them  still  others.     It  is  difficult  for  some  of  us  to 
believe  in  these  other  universes  —  it  is  difficult  for  some  of 
us  to  believe  in  any  but  our  own.    The  little  brown  men 
help  us  to  see  the  world  whole." 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know.  But  with  me  it's  always  the  other 
universes  —  the  other  people  —  the  little  brown  men  — 
the  people  on  that  yacht  —  the  people  in  other  houses  — " 
Jane  was  beyond  herself.  She  was  breaking  the  silence  of 
eighteen  years.  "  Now,  mother  — "  she  began  and  stopped. 

"Yes?"  said  Lilla.  " Mother ?  — That  was  what  I  was 
intending  to  ask  you." 

"Why,  mother's  different.    She  sees  the  world  whole 

—  like  a  map."    Jane  turned  to  the  duke,  "Of  course  she's 


VENUS  ANADYOMENE  53 

had  what  you  call  advantages  —  what  you  say  I've  had. 
She's  seen  the  people  in  other  houses  !" 

"My  dear  Mademoiselle  Jeanne,  she  doesn't  have  to  see 
them,  her  own  house  is  so  very  big." 

Jane  stared.     "Mother's ?    Why,  she  hasn't  got  one !" 

"Literally,  no.  Metaphorically,  yes.  When  all  our 
houses  are  fallen  to  dust,  your  mother  will  smile  at  us  from 
her  window.  We  accept  —  passively.  Your  mother  takes 
—  the  reverse  of  passively.  Yet  I  don't  wish  to  make 
your  mother  out  a  thief,  even  metaphorically.  But  she 
is  one,  she  is  one  —  after  her  fashion.  She  takes  us,  —  she 
picks  us  up  with  a  skilful  turn  of  her  strong  wrist,  —  she 
slings  us  into  the  bag  she  carries  over  her  shoulder — " 

"She's  never  done  that  to  me,"  said  Jane. 

The  duke  smiled.  "Your  mother,  my  child,  is  an  im 
mortal." 

"An  immortal?    Who?"    Mrs.  Dench  had  returned. 

"It  is  you." 

"I?    How  charming!" 

"I  was' explaining  to  your  daughter  a  little  theory,  not 
new,  about  the  individual  universe." 

Mrs.  Dench  was  vague.  "Oh,  I  felt  sure  that  you  and 
Jane  would  get  on.  I've  sent  the  note.  The  captain,  you 
know,  is  my  very  good  friend."  She  took  her  choice  of 
proffered  chairs.  "What  is  that  book,  Jane?" 

"The  novel  about  New  York.     I  wasn't  reading  it." 

She  leaned  over  and  plucked  it  from  her  daughter's  easy 
grasp.  "Ah  —  you  shouldn't !" 

M.  Gadillon  turned  from  a  contemplation  of  the  embroid 
ered  intricacies  on  Mme.  Rostov's  sleeve.  "I  thought  the 
book  very  interesting.  So  many  books  have  such  elabora- 


54  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

tion.  That  is  so  simple.  One  reads  it  as  one  eats  one's 
dinner  or  takes  a  drink." 

The  princess  voiced  her  appreciation.  "Ah,  you  young 
men  —  you  young  men  —  you're  a  lazy  lot.  Thirty  years 
ago  men  worked  for  their  pleasures !" 

"Ah  — in  Russia." 

The  little  scarlet-bound  volume  had  again  changed  hands. 
It  was  the  duke  who  had  it  now.  He  indicated  with  an 
expressive  forefinger  the  name  on  its  title-page.  "There's 
a  woman  —  a  woman  without  a  house  of  her  own." 

Mrs.  Dench  again  was  vague.     "How  do  you  know?" 

"From  reading  her  book.  It  has  no  reality."  The 
duke  greatly  valued  reality. 

in 

The  big  white  yacht  with  the  American  flag  was  smoth 
ered  in  fine  black  dust.  For  her  also,  Larnaca,  in  the  island 
of  Cyprus,  was  a  town  of  coal.  A  collier  lay  alongside, 
and  little  brown  men  —  brothers  of  those  Jane  Dench  so 
wondered  at  —  filled  bags  with  the  precious  fuel,  and  these 
bags  were  raised  to  the  deck  of  the  yacht,  from  whence 
they  were  thrown  into  the  bunkers.  It  seemed  an  endless 
task ;  the  bunkers  were  devouring  beasts,  the  dust  rose  black, 
the  Mediterranean  sun  beat  into  the  deck.  The  time  for 
coaling  ship,  said  John  Barlow,  was  the  early  dawn.  John 
Barlow  spoke  as  one  who  knew.  He  was  the  owner  of  the 
big  white  yacht.  As  to  the  question  of  time,  his  captain 
agreed  with  him ;  and  on  the  strength  of  the  agreement  was 
offered  and  accepted  a  cigar. 

It  seemed  that  Larnaca  objected  to  the  coaling  of  two 
foreign  yachts  at  once.  It  overtaxed  her  resources.  The 


VENUS  ANADYOMENE  55 

problem  was  one  which  rarely  arose,  however,  and  when 
it  did,  it  could  be  arranged.  In  the  case  in  point,  the  French 
yacht,  owned  by  no  less  a  personage  than  the  Duke  de 
Clopin,  had  been  first  served.  The  task,  begun  at  dawn, 
was  finished  while  it  yet  was  early.  At  the  hour  when  Mr. 
Barlow  was  condoling  with  his  captain,  the  Jungfrau  was 
as  fresh  and  clean  as  a  new-scrubbed  puppy.  Mr.  Barlow 
glared  at  her  vindictively.  In  his  own  country  he  was  the 
one  to  be  first  served.  In  his  own  country  he  was  a  force 
to  be  reckoned  with  —  politically  —  financially  —  gas- 
tronomically.  Especially  gastronomically.  He  was  the 
inventor,  the  manufacturer,  and  the  patentee  of  those  melt- 
ingly  delicious,  medicinally  wholesome,  delicately  brown 
puffs  of  nourishment  —  Barlow's  Barley  Buns.  His  yacht 
was  named  the  Ballerina,  with  few  to  appreciate  the  jest. 

On  the  deck  of  the  Ballerina,  in  that  part  farthest  re 
moved  from  the  coaling  activities,  a  young  man  was  stand 
ing.  His  elbows  were  resting  on  the  rail,  his  head  in  his 
hands.  He  had  handsome  hands  —  bronzed  from  the  sun, 
but  delicately  made.  Rather  surprising  hands  for  the  son 
of  John  Barlow.  And  the  head  which  they  seemed  to  sup 
port  was  rather  a  surprising  head.  In  fact,  David  Barlow, 
from  his  hands  to  his  head,  and  probably  his  feet,  was  as 
surprising  as  any  delicate  and  complicated  mechanism  — 
a  chemist's  scales  —  a  surgeon's  instrument  —  the  machines 
by  which  inventing  electricians  conquer  time  and  space. 
He  himself  was  a  machine  from  which  all  unnecessary  bulk 
had  been  eliminated.  He  was  hard  and  fine  almost  to 
brittleness,  as  compact  and  as  distinct  as  a  bronze  statuette. 
His  attitude  of  dejection  had  in  it  nothing  of  limpness;  it 
was  the  attitude  of  a  young  hawk,  or  a  terrier,  alert,  but  still, 


56  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

whose  alertness  is  suddenly  caught  and  held  by  the  snap  of 
a  camera. 

The  ocean  was  blue  and  still  and  clear.  David  Barlow 
watched  it,  his  restless  glance  shifting  back  and  forth  be 
tween  two  points.  One  of  these  was  the  French  yacht, 
the  other  was  merely  like  a  concentration  of  brightness  in 
the  midst  of  the  glare;  it  was  as  if  on  a  white  sheet  there 
appeared  a  whiter  spot.  All  around  was  glitter  and  blind 
ing  sun,  and  this  was  a  flash  as  of  steel  or  the  wet  silver 
scales  of  a  great  fish.  But  young  Barlow's  trained  eye 
knew  it  for  the  flash  of  oars  and  a  boat,  brass-trimmed 
He  wondered  what  message  the  French  yacht  had  for  the 
Ballerina  —  what  friends  had  unexpectedly  appeared.  He 
had  thought  that  for  the  time  he  was  free  of  his  friends ; 
he  had  succeeded  in  giving  those  of  them  that  were  his 
father's  guests  what  they  loudly  insisted  upon  calling 
shore  leave;  and  his  attitude  of  dejection  had  in  reality 
been  one  of  enjoyment  of  his  aloofness. 

Like  many  people  who  find  themselves  good  company, 
he  was  essentially  an  unsocial  being.  He  had  his  moments 
of  sociality ;  but  the  constant  abuse  by  his  father's  guests 
of  the  thing  the  term  implied  was  making  these  moments 
rare.  They  were  like  a  herd  of  buffalo,  his^  father's  guests, 
forever  pushing  to  the  centre  of  the  herd.  It  was  either  that 
with  them  or  else  —  in  the  long  starlit  evenings  —  a  curious 
pairing  off,  chairs  drawn  two  and  two  all  over  the  deck. 
David  arranged  his  chair  in  like  manner,  and  generally 
found  that  the  only  subject  he  had  in  common  with  his 
neighbor  was  the  universal  one  of  love.  The  next  day 
—  sometimes  before  that  —  he  despised  himself  with  all 
the  hard  intensity  that  was  in  him;  he  despised  himself, 


VENUS   ANADYOMENE  57 

not  for  the  fact,  but  for  the  company  it  made  him  keep. 
If  he  had  been  the  only  man  in  the  world  to  make  love 
lightly  on  a  starlit  night,  he  would  have  come  forth  with 
his  estimate  of  himself  unscathed.  But  ten  feet  away, 
clearly  outlined  in  the  dimness,  there  was  usually  a  rotund 
and  not  too  young  fellow-fool  who  was  as  much  moved  to 
sentiment  by  the  champagne  he  had  drunk  at  dinner  as  was 
David  Barlow  by  the  tingle  of  his  nervous  blood.  He 
despised  the  fellow-fool  as  much  as  he  despised  himself. 
Youth  was  the  only  excuse  for  that  sort  of  thing;  that 
sort  of  thing  and  age  were,  thank  heaven,  anachronistic ! 
He  saw  before  him  a  vista  of  blessed  years  quite  unhampered 
by  fair  neighbors  and  starlight.  Those  were  the  years  when 
he  would  conquer  the  world  —  not  as  Alexander,  by  force, 
but  through  men's  minds.  What  —  else  —  was  the  use  of 
Barley  Buns,  of  vast  wealth?  For  himself  he  had  few 
wants.  Money  was  lead  tied  to  his  feet;  it  made  him  a 
target  for  women  and  removed  the  necessity  of  a  daily 
wage.  But  he  was  studying  law.  It  was  to  be  law  at  first, 
and  then,  by  an  easy  transition,  politics,  and  perhaps  an 
eventual  ship  of  state  to  replace  the  Ballerina. 

He  still  watched  the  tender  from  the  French  yacht.  It 
was  nearer  now  and  seemed  to  be  pressing  in  upon  his 
planned-for  solitude.  It  was  more  than  a  point  of  greater 
brightness ;  it  was  a  point  —  larger  and  larger  —  of  irrita 
tion.  He  found  himself  disliking  it  with  absurd  violence. 
It  had  a  sort  of  impertinence  in  the  midst  of  the  great,  quiet 
ocean  which  the  native  boats  quite  lacked.  It  was  a  sharp, 
false  note,  and  had  the  effect,  finally,  of  driving  him  from 
his  post.  He  owed  it  to  himself,  he  felt,  not  to  be  bothered. 
The  thing  reminded  him  of  a  little  French  dancer  whom  he 


58  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

had  once  seen  and  not  admired.  She  had  worn  gold  slippers, 
and  they  flashed  from  her  draperies  much  as  the  oars  of  her 
countryman's  boat  flashed  from  the  water.  Her  dance  had 
been  a  flicker  of  motion,  seemingly  as  uncertain  as  the  flight 
of  a  scrap  of  paper  in  a  breeze ;  yet  it  had  impressed  him  at 
the  time  —  and  he  still  carried  its  memory  —  as  being 
almost  unbelievably  studied  and  designed.  That  so  much 
thought  should  be  expended  on  so  slight  an  end  !  —  David 
Barlow  was  a  small  young  man,  and  his  thoughts,  like  his 
caligraphy,  tended  towards  the  large. 

He  walked  the  full  length  of  the  deck,  his  hands  in  the 
pockets  of  his  short  duck  coat,  the  brim  of  his  sailor's  cap 
turned  till  it  nearly  touched  his  rather  high-bridged  nose. 
A  dancer's  golden  slippers  —  a  rope  shirt  would  have  made 
to  him  a  more  sympathetic  appeal.  Though  he  had  never 
possessed  one,  —  perhaps  because  of  that,  —  a  rope  shirt 
came  very  near  to  being  his  ideal  of  a  garment.  He  had  a 
leaning  towards  the  ascetic,  even  the  monastic ;  he  found 
fasting  a  finer  pleasure  than  feasting,  the  joys  of  work 
greater  than  the  joys  of  play.  And  yet  the  joys  —  the  ar 
dors  —  of  which  he  was  capable,  while  quite  apart  from  the 
things  of  the  flesh,  were  equally  removed  from  the  ardors 
of  prayer.  It  was  in  a  prayer  to  himself  that  he  put  his 
belief.  Upon  the  day  when  he  stood  on  the  deck  of  the 
Ballerina,  this  prayer  to  himself  had  attained  its  greatest 
urgency.  The  whole  of  life  was  spread  before  him. 

Visions  are  sometimes  associated  with  vagueness.  David 
Barlow's  visions  were  marvels  of  exactness.  This  summer 
was  to  be  his  last ;  after  this  the  vagaries  of  nature  were  to 
pass  unnoticed ;  henceforward  it  was  to  be  law  —  and  order ; 
one  more  year  of  Law  School,  —  he  knew  all  about  that.  He 


VENUS  ANADYOMENE  59 

knew  the  firm  that  he  was  to  enter  on  graduating ;  he  even 
knew  the  corner  of  the  office  where  they  would  place  his 
desk.  Joan  of  Arc  tending  her  sheep  and  dreaming  of  armed 
men  couldn't  have  seen  her  visions  more  clearly.  And  he 
was  ready  —  ready  as  an  instrument  of  tempered  steel. 
And  because  he  had  been  able  to  conceive  so  much,  his 
chance  of  success  was  high.  Then  his  visions  and  his 
prayers  and  his  hard-earned  solitude  were  broken  and  dis 
turbed  by  a  small,  irrelevant  object  —  a  flash  of  greater 
brightness  in  the  midst  of  the  bright,  still  ocean.  It  was 
nothing  but  the  boat  from  the  French  yacht;  but  to  rid 
himself  of  the  consciousness  of  it,  he  went  below  to  his 
stateroom  and  locked  the  door. 

IV 

John  Barlow,  together  with  his  son  David,  was  on  his 
way  to  lunch  with  the  Duke  and  Duchess  de  Clopin  aboard 
their  yacht,  Jungfrau.  On  the  strength  of  the  invitation 
he  nearly  forgave  them  the  incident  of  the  coaling.  Yet 
he  wasn't  overflattered.  He'd  not  been  bom  yesterday, 
had  John  Barlow,  and  he  knew  very  well  that  lunching  with 
a  ducal  pair  near  the  island  of  Cyprus  was  a  very  different 
thing  from  partaking  of  a  similar  meal  with  them  near  the 
city  of  Paris.  He  had  accepted,  nevertheless ;  the  duchess's 
note  was  written  in  excellent  English,  and  mentioned,  also, 
a  lady  of  many  impossible  names  and  the  title  of  '  princess/ 
Considering  the  fact  of  the  princess,  Mr.  Barlow  couldn't  help 
a  wholly  unworthy  sense  of  relief  when  he  realized  that  his 
guests  couldn't  possibly  be  communicated  with.  They 
were  off,  the  Lord  knew  where,  exploring  Larnaca,  perhaps 
gone  up  into  the  island,  —  there  were  salt  pits,  —  they  might 


60  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

go  there.  So  it  was  only  himself  and  his  son  who  were  able 
to  take  luncheon  aboard  the  Jungfrau,  and  Mr.  Barlow 
had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  they  were  both  fully 
equal  to  the  occasion. 

Mr.  Barlow  was  proud  of  his  son.  He  had  a  distinction 
which  seemed  quite  uncontaminated  by  the  Buns.  David's 
mother  —  poor  lady,  the  ocean  had  an  impossible  effect 
upon  her,  and  she  had  remained  in  America  —  David's 
mother  was  in  the  habit  of  saying  that  he  lacked  the  Chris 
tian  virtues;  but  this  statement  David's  father  couldn't 
comprehend.  He  considered  that  his  son  even  erred  a  little 
on  the  side  of  the  virtuous;  he  surely  was  the  reverse  of 
dissipated ;  he  neither  drank,  gambled,  nor  kept  wild  com 
pany  ;  and  money  —  perhaps  because  he  was  familiar  with 
it  in  a  quantity  which  apparently  lessened  its  value  —  he 
used  very  sparingly.  But  David's  mother  said  his  lack  of 
virtue  went  deeper  than  that,  and  she  should  have  known. 
His  father  watched  him  as  he  sat  in  the  bow  of  the  tender. 
He  had  taken  off  his  hat,  and  the  noon  sun  beat  down  on  his 
bared,  close-cropped  head.  His  fine,  chiselled  profile  was 
sharply  outlined  against  the  sea.  He  was  indeed  a  son  to 
be  proud  of,  an  heir  which  any  potentate  in  Europe  would 
find  it  hard  to  equal.  In  the  soul  of  John  Barlow  the 
American  eagle  fairly  screamed. 

In  the  soul  of  David  nothing  screamed.  The  young 
hawk  had  turned  lamb.  The  expedition  was  not  of  his 
choosing.  He  felt  a  lamb  led  to  the  sacrifice.  And  the 
distance  between  himself  and  the  big  French  yacht  was 
constantly  growing  less.  He  looked  up.  It  was  as  if  a 
corner  of  Paris  were  suddenly  transplanted  to  the  Mediter 
ranean.  There  were  wide,  gayly  striped  awnings  and 


VENUS  ANADYOMENE  61 

painted  woods  and  bright  rugs ;  the  little  port-holes  glistened, 
and  high  in  the  air  the  many  pennants  seemed  stirred  by 
an  invisible  breeze.  Some  one  was  singing  in  a  light  soprano 
voice  to  the  strumming  accompaniment  of  a  guitar. 

"  Vien,  Poupoul  —  vien,  Poupoul  —  vien  — 
Vous  avec  moi  ce  soir  —  " 

It  was  the  year  of  "Vien,  Poupoul." 

He  presently  discerned  a  woman  dressed  in  black  standing 
at  the  rail.  She  was  holding  a  pair  of  marine  glasses  to  her 
eyes,  evidently  the  better  to  watch  the  tender's  approach. 
She  gave  an  impression  of  age,  even  at  that  distance,  and  it 
occurred  to  David  that  instead  of  marine  glasses  she  should 
have  had  a  distaff  and  flax.  Her  companions  wore  light, 
bright  dresses  and  were  scattered  about  the  deck  in  various 
attitudes  of  leisure ;  but  she  was  occupied  and  inexorable. 
She  turned,  and  her  sharp  exclamation  reached  the  new 
arrivals :  — 

"Look  !    There  are  only  two  !  — " 

It  was  said  in  French,  and  seemed  by  its  tone  to  be  an 
accusation. 

"Well,  my  dear  princess,  we  have  done  our  best." 

The  woman  who  had  answered  disappeared  down  the 
companionway.  She  had  a  deep,  rich  voice,  and  seemed 
used  to  command.  David  thought  her  to  be  the  duchess. 

There  was  a  moment  of  noise  and  confusion  —  a  jabber 
of  tongues  —  and  the  gang-plank  was  lowered.  The  Bar 
lows  were  met  by  their  host,  a  pale  little  man,  exquisitely 
attired;  and  the  woman  who  had  gone  below  wasn't  the 
duchess,  for  the  duke  immediately  presented  them  to  his 
wife  —  a  lady  quite  other.  The  strange  old  creature  in 


62  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

black  was  the  heralded  Princess  Karina.  She  stared  at 
them:  "Were  there  not  more  on  your  beautiful  boat? 
A  gay  assemblage?" 

David,  whose  French  was  more  fluent  than  his  father's, 
answered  her  question. 

"Ah  —  there  were  more,  you  say,  only  they  had  gone. 
Where  had  they  gone  ?  Where  is  there  to  go  ?  " 

David  again  explained. 

"Ah  —  I  am  disappointed  —  I  am  sad."  From  the  point 
of  view  of  the  Princess  Karina  Mrs.  Dench's  note  had  failed 
in  its  mission. 

Mme.  Rostov  paused  in  her  song.  "You  are  so  often 
sad."  She  turned  to  the  duchess.  "Lilla,  please  present 
these  gentlemen." 

"With  this  lady  it  is  always  these  gentlemen,"  said  the 
princess. 

M.  Gadillon  picked  at  his  guitar.  "With  these  gentle 
men  it  is  always  this  lady." 

Things  had  surely  come  to  a  pretty  pass  when  the  Prin 
cess  Karina  could  be  openly  defied;  a  long  absence  from 
cities  and  the  wear  and  tear  of  civilization  distorts  the  sense 
of  values  —  the  sense  of  what  is  due.  The  Barlows  bid 
fair  to  become  a  cause  of  battle.  They  bowed  low  to  Mme. 
Rostov.  She  addressed  the  elder.  It  was  a  type  she  ad 
mired,  full  habited,  with  a  look  of  power  in  the  heavy 
cheek-bones.  "You  speak  French,  monsieur?" 

"Very  little." 

"Russian?" 

Mr.  Barlow  didn't  speak  Russian. 

Mme.  Rostov  made  an  attempt  at  English,  however,  and 
for  the  rest  of  the  day  John  Barlow  was  not  to  be  reckoned 


VENUS  ANADYOMENE  63 

with.  M.  Gadillon  joined  a  distant  group,  which  had  the 
effect  of  bringing  forward  Jane. 

"I  saw  you  while  you  were  still  in  the  small  boat,  Mr. 
Barlow,"  she  said  to  David,  and  gave  him  her  hand  to  shake. 
He  admired  her  beauty. 

"You  are  compatriots,"  the  duchess  said. 

Jane  smiled.     "I  know  we  are.     Isn't  it  nice?" 

David  Barlow  found  her  bold  —  or  at  least  Europeanized. 
"Do  you  come  from  New  York,  Miss  Dench?" 

"No.  You  see  I've  only  been  to  America  once,  when  I 
was  a  very  little  girl.  My  mother  and  I  have  always  lived 
over  here." 

Young  Barlow  looked  in  vain  for  a  so  far  unidentified 
woman.  They  were  standing  in  a  circle  on  the  forward 
deck  —  Mme  Rostov,  John  Barlow,  the  duchess,  the  prin 
cess,  David,  Jane,  and  the  duke. 

"I,"  said  David,  "have  spent  most  of  my  life  in  America. 
This  is  for  me  an  exceptional  adventure." 

"What  do  you  do  in  America?"  It  was  the  princess's 
question. 

"I  study  law." 

"The  law.    I  know.    And  what  does  your  father  do ? 

David  was  on  the  edge  of  a  reckless  mood.  "My  father? 
He  is  a  manufacturer  of  buns.  Have  you  never  heard  of 
Barlow's  Barley  Buns?" 

The  company  gasped. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  the  princess,  "a  baker." 

"Yes,"  said  David,  "a  baker."  He  was  vaguely  re 
minded  of  comic  opera.  These  people  had  spoiled  his 
solitude,  but  the  entertainment  they  offered  him  was  worth 
that. 


64  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"In  your  strange  country  an  occupation  is  not  thought 
degrading." 

"Not  if  it  is  sufficiently  successful." 

"Not  if  it  provides  you  with  a  plaything  like  that." 
The  duke  indicated  the  Ballerina.  "May  you  be  as  suc 
cessful  with  the  law." 

"Successful?"  asked  the  princess.  "Why,  it  won't  be 
necessary !" 

It  was  a  conversation  which  John  Barlow  wouldn't  have 
cared  about.  The  difficulties  presented  by  the  foreign 
tongue  were  fortunate  —  fortunate,  also,  the  distraction 
incident  to  servants  appearing  with  cooling  glasses.  But 
the  princess  had  a  tenacity  of  purpose. 

"Mme.  Rostov — "  she  called,  "Mme.  Rostov — " 

The  circle  had  broken  and  widened,  and  Mme.  Rostov 
was  some  little  distance  away  conversing  with  John  Barlow 
in  her  pretty,  halting  English. 

"Mme.  Rostov,"  the  princess  insisted,  "your  American 
friend,  Mr.  Parrish,  was  he  not  in  trade  ?  Did  he  not  have 
an  occupation?" 

"Really,  I  do  not  remember.     It  did  not  impress  me." 

"You  are  very  forgetful." 

The  princess  again  turned  to  David.  She  was  making 
the  best  of  a  lack  of  a  gay  assemblage.  But  David  would 
rather  have  talked  to  Jane  Dench.  He  admired  her  beauty, 
and  her  presence  in  that  gathering  was  unexplained  —  she 
was  so  obviously  unattached,  so  obviously  wasn't  one  of 
them.  Her  position  didn't  seem  to  be  dependent,  and  yet 
it  surely  wasn't  on  the  plea  of  congeniality  that  she  was 
there.  His  own  guests  would  have  been  far  less  inappro 
priate.  Theirs  was  only  a  difference  in  feather  from  the 


VENUS  ANADYOMENE  65 

Jungfrau's  party;  hers  was  a  difference  in  specie.  He 
couldn't  decide  whether  she  was  either  extremely  bold  or 
extremely  shy.  Her  companions  were  not  this  last.  He 
still  looked  for  the  mother  with  whom  she  had  always  lived 
'over  here.'  He  thought  that  lady  mythical.  It  was  all 
a  riddle,  and  his  legal  curiosity  awaited  the  solution.  But 
the  princess  had  yet  other  riddles  to  propound. 

"Tell  me,  Mr.  Barlow,  what  kind  of  a  woman  is  Emily 
Stedman?" 

"Emily  Stedman?" 

"Yes,  she  is  an  American.  She  wrote  a  book  that  we 
are  all  discussing  here,  and  I  feel  that  you  must  know." 

"I  never  heard  of  her." 

"Oh,  but  you  must !  I  half  expected  her  to  be  on  your 
beautiful  boat." 

David  made  an  appeal  to  Jane.  "What  are  they  talking 
about?" 

It  was  in  English,  and  in  English  that  Jane  replied. 
"I  don't  know,  I'm  sure.  You  see  I  haven't  been  allowed 
to  read  the  book." 

Jane  didn't  strike  him  as  a  person  whose  reading  would 
be  restricted.  Decidedly,  David  Barlow  thought  her  bold. 

"So  you  do  not  know  this  Miss  Stedman ? "  It  was  again 
the  princess. 

"No." 

"But  you  shall.  In  your  country  these  things  are  ar 
ranged  so  simply.  She  is  worthy  of  knowing,  I  assure  you. 
Her  book  —  for  myself  I  read  little  English,  but  I  can  still 
see  that  her  book  is  very  clever.  Oh,  she  is  worthy  of  know 
ing  ! — "  The  princess  became  aware  that  her  listener 
was  not  giving  to  her  his  full  attention  —  in  fact,  at  the 


66  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

moment,  was  not  giving  to  her  any  attention  at  all.  He 
was  looking  towards  the  companion-way,  from  which  that 
mythical  lady,  Mrs.  Bench,  the  mother  of  Jane,  was  emerg 
ing.  But  it  was  not  as  the  mother  of  Jane  that-  David 
Barlow  saw  her. 

There  are  certain  phenomena  which  are  always  a  little  in 
advance  of  their  explanations.  Electricity  —  the  human 
brain  —  life  itself.  Nearer  and  nearer  come  the  answers, 
and  yet  not  near  enough.  And  added  to  these  is  still  an 
other,  not  older,  perhaps,  but  longer  puzzled  over.  For 
this  last  the  explanations  are  many.  It  is  called  an  arrange 
ment  of  nature,  alike  shared  by  the  birds  of  the  air  and  the 
beasts  of  the  field  —  a  chance  further  tip  of  the  scales  of 
liking  —  an  unfolding  sympathy  of  soul  —  the  expression 
of  man's  sense  of  beauty.  This  much-defined  phenomenon 
is  love  —  with  man,  an  emotion.  Love,  supposedly,  was 
the  emotion  that  made  the  bronze  in  David  Barlow's  cheek 
deepen  and  widen  till  the  deeper  color  overspread  his  brow 
and  his  eyelids  and  even  his  throat.  But  if  it  were  love, 
it  could  be  explained;  and  the  emotion  which  suddenly 
descended  upon  him  has  always  remained  as  far  from  a 
fitting  interpretation  as  electricity  or  the  human  brain  or 
life  itself. 

For  a  very  perceptible  moment  he  was  incapable  of  move 
ment,  and  then  he  turned  to  find  Jane  Dench  looking  at  him 
with  a  new,  odd  expression. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CELEBRITY 


"THANK  you,  Mrs.  Mellish,  for  what  you  have  been  so 
kind  as  to  tell  me."  Emily  Stedman  rose  and  extended 
her  hand  to  her  visitor.  Her  other  visitor,  Ralph  Parrish, 
had  long  since  gone,  and  the  striking  of  the  little  gilded, 
clock  on  the  mantelpiece  had  reminded  Mrs.  Mellish  of  the 
lateness  of  the  hour. 

"It  seemed  best,  my  dear,  that  you  should  know  what 
is  said." 

"You  came  especially  for  that?  You  were  kind.  If 
you'd  spoken  when  Mr.  Parrish  was  here,  your  kindness 
would  have  been  complete  —  as  it  is,  I  shall  have  the  dis 
agreeable  task  of  telling  him  myself." 

"But  what  will  you  tell  him?  What  can  you  tell  him? 
I  don't  understand  — " 

Mrs.  Mellish  was  surprised  at  Miss  Stedman's  sudden 
laughter.  "Is  it  a  subject  that  a  woman  of  my  age  can't 
touch  ?  You  know  if  what  you  said  were  true,  it  would  be 
the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  for  us  to  talk  it  over  quite 
pleasantly.  Even  as  it  is,  I  think  I  know  my  cousin  well 
enough  to  make  him  see  it." 

"But  are  you  sure  you  see  it  yourself?" 

"Do  I  see  that  other  people  don't  see  —  those  people 

67 


68          OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

who  have  appeared  on  me  from  heaven  knows  where,  that 
have  nocked  to  my  little  success,  the  little  poets  and  the 
little  scribblers  ?  The  fact  that  they  have  time  for  me 
shows  what  they  are.  They  crowd  into  the  light  of  my 
lamp,  and  now  they  throw  mud  at  me.  What  possible  dif 
ference  can  it  make  —  what  they  say,  or  what  they  think 
they  see?" 

"But  don't  you  care?" 

"Why  should  I  care  ?    What  they  say  isn't  true." 

"Ah,  you  don't  have  to  tell  me  that !" 

"Why  do  I  not?  Though  it's  hardly  a  case  where  my 
word  is  of  value."  Emily  smiled  at  Mrs.  Hellish,  who  was 
gazing  at  the  rather  dismantled  tea-table. 

"Your  word,  my  dear !" 

Emily  insisted.  "It's  of  no  value !"  Her  eyes  followed 
the  direction  of  her  guest's.  "You'll  have  something 
more  ?  —  Do." 

Mrs.  Mellish  again  saw  that  it  was  late.  "I  couldn't  — 
really," 

There  was  a  silence  which  Emily  broke.  "Why,  Ralph 
Parrish  and  I  were  children  together.  We've  grown  up 
side  by  side.  I  knocked  him  down  once  —  he  lay  sprawling 
in  the  mud.  We  were  a  bad  pair;  death  and  destruction 
followed  in  our  wake;  we  stole  our  neighbors'  apples  and 
we  caught  their  fish ;  we  used  to  lay  traps  for  the  professors 
and  frighten  the  students  at  night.  It  all  comes  back  to 
me  —  the  old  time.  Why,  it  seems  only  yesterday  that  we 
ceased  to  kiss  each  other  good-by  !" 

"And  why  did  you  do  that  ?" 

"We  were  too  old;  we  might  have  been  misunderstood." 

"But  if  you  are  misunderstood  without  that  —  " 


CELEBRITY  69 

"We  might  just  as  well  —  is  that  what  you  mean?" 

Mrs.  Hellish  looked  up  quickly.  "If  kissing  each  other 
good-by  would  give  you  any  pleasure  — " 

"Think  of  the  moral  horror  we  escape  !  We  at  least  can 
have  an  inner  consciousness  of  rectitude." 

"Would  it  really  give  you  a  moral  horror?  You  some 
times  have  a  frivolity  in  your  method  of  treating  serious 
things.  I  hardly  know  what  to  think  —  " 

"Wouldn't  it  give  you  a  moral  horror,  Mrs.  Mellish,  — 
kissing  a  young  man  good-by,  —  a  young  man  who  was 
neither  your  husband  nor  your  son  nor  your  fiance*  —  even 
if  he  were  your  first  cousin  once  removed?  " 

"What  it  would  give  me  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
it." 

"You  don't  judge  me,  then,  by  your  own  standards?" 

"I've  seen  too  much  of  the  artistic  temperament;  I've 
had  it  in  my  house,  I've  dined  it  and  I've  wined  it,  I  might 
almost  say  I've  cultivated  it  — " 

Emily  cut  her  short.     "I  know.    It's  an  excuse — " 

"But  you've  nothing  to  excuse." 

"And  even  if  I  had?" 

Emily's  adviser  drew  on  her  gloves.  "  I  don't  know  what 
to  think.  You're  quite  hopeless." 

"I'm  sorry  if  I  seem  to  treat  my  friends'  opinions  lightly. 
It's  very  difficult  to  escape  the  comment  of  the  idle." 

"If  it  wasn't  for  the  gravity  of  the  situation,  I  should  say 
that  you  didn't  try  to  escape  it  —  that  you  rather  enjoyed  it." 

"I've  never  enjoyed  anything  so  much  in  my  life  before. 
The  situation's  exquisite." 

Mrs.  Mellish  turned  in  the  doorway.  "Ah,  my  dear,  you 
don't  mean  what  you  say  — " 


70  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

Emily  waited  and  presently  heard  the  door  in  the  entry 
close.  The  little  gilded  clock  struck  the  quarter  hour.  She 
looked  at  it,  and  in  doing  so  caught  sight  of  her  own  face  in 
the  glass  over  the  mantelpiece.  Her  attention  was  arrested 
by  an  expression  which  she'd  never  seen  there  before,  an 
expression  strangely  verging  on  the  triumphant.  She 
studied  the  face  in  the  glass  almost  as  though  it  were  not 
her  own,  as  though  it  were  something  new  and  curious  — 
the  face  of  an  intruding  lurker  in  the  shadows  behind  her. 
But  the  triumph  had  been  but  a  flash  in  the  pan;  as  she 
looked,  it  went  quite  away.  She  put  up  her  small,  thin 
hands  and  smoothed  her  elaborately  coiffed  hair.  The  lace 
of  her  sleeve  fell  back  from  her  arm.  The  dim  light  of 
dusk  and  lamp  lent  her  a  kind  of  beauty;  it  was  that  she 
stared  at  now,  and  her  eyes  never  left  the  eyes  in  the  glass. 
As  she  looked  she  repeated  it  over  and  over.  "  The  moral 
horror  —  the  moral  horror  —  the  moral  horror  —  " 


ii 

Ralph  Parrish  was  walking  up  Fifth  Avenue  at  the  close 
of  the  day.  At  the  avenue's  lower  end  was  the  firm  of 
wholesale  fur  dealers  of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  at  its 
upper  was  the  Town  Club  of  which  he  was  also  a  member. 
It  was  at  the  Town  Club  that  he  lived.  An  organization 
which  made  up  in  comfort  what  it  lacked  in  fashion,  —  a 
league  of  business  men  of  a  prosperity  sufficient  to  pay  for 
luxuries,  —  it  yet  excluded  from  its  lists  even  a  suspicion  of 
the  Hebraic,  and  had  other  qualifications  —  some  of  them 
mysterious  to  the  layman  —  which  made  its  membership 
not  merely  a  question  of  finance.  It  filled  in  the  great  city 


CELEBRITY  71 

a  long-felt  need ;  Parrish,  in  having  been  one  of  its  organ 
izers,  felt  himself  a  benefactor. 

It  was  Parrish's  daily  habit  to  walk  from  his  office  to  his 
club;  and  he  had  another  habit,  almost  as  frequent,  which 
was  to  break  his  walk  by  turning  in  at  a  street  in  the  late 
thirties.  When  he  thought  about  it  at  all,  which  was  rare, 
he  was  afraid  that  he  was  becoming  as  much  a  creature  of 
habit  as  the  rest  of  his  kind.  For  a  case  in  point  his  nomadic 
tendencies  were  deserting  him.  He  hadn't  left  his  own  coun 
try,  except  by  the  urgent  necessities  of  fur  dealing,  since  a 
year  from  the  previous  June,  and  it  was  now  November. 
He  had  even  been  wonderfully  faithful  to  his  country's  largest 
city.  He  had  stayed  in  New  York  through  all  the  past 
summer,  through  all  the  heat  and  deadness,  and  now  the 
air  was  cold  with  a  first  flurry  of  snow.  The  flakes  clung  to 
his  mustache.  The  pavements  were  made  slippery. 

He  hesitated  a  moment  at  the  street  in  the  late  thirties, 
and  then  turned  in.  The  bad  weather  promised  him  a  quiet 
talk,  and  he  would  yet  have  the  credit  of  coming  at  an  hour 
likely  to  be  interrupted.  His  intimacy  with  his  cousin 
was  the  subject  of  some  comment,  and  Emily  had  shrewdly 
suggested  a  courting  of  publicity  as  an  effective  means  of 
stopping  it.  She  had  a  levelness  of  head  in  this  day  of  her 
celebrity.  Parrish  arrived  at  her  little  apartment  to  find, 
as  he  had  hoped,  that  her  parlor  was  empty.  He  didn't 
like  her  friends,  and  he  was  glad  to  be  saved  the  necessity 
of  seeing  them.  He  had  a  sort  of  dread  of  them ;  he  knew, 
none  better,  his  cousin's  possibilities ;  and  if  the  people  who 
hung  about  her  had  been  of  the  marrying  kind,  he  might 
have  dreaded  something  like  that.  As  it  was,  his  dread 
was  none  the  less  vivid  for  being  hi  its  nature  vague. 


72  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

Miss  Stedman  was  lying  down,  and  begged  a  moment's 
grace.  Ralph  Parrish  waited.  Her  little  gilt-trimmed 
parlor  always  struck  him  with  a  fresh  wonder.  It  was  such 
a  very  far  cry  from  Hornmouth.  It  was  like  nothing  so 
much  as  the  inside  of  a  milliner's  bonnet  box.  Or,  at  least, 
it  was  the  way  the  inside  of  a  milliner's  bonnet  box  ought  to 
look,  and  it  was  to  the  everlasting  shame  of  milliners  that 
it  always  didn't.  The  great  gay-patterned  chintz  which 
ran  riot  over  the  furniture,  the  bright  brocade  drapery 
of  the  piano,  the  leopard-skin  rug,  and  the  light  silk  curtains 
were  all  notes  in  a  surprisingly  harmonious  whole.  The 
result,  if  inclined  to  the  theatrical,  was  still  undeniably 
pleasing.  Theatrical  —  acrobatic  —  what  you  will  —  it 
fairly  demanded  applause.  Emily  Stedman  herself  fairly 
demanded  it.  She  had  kept  her  cousin  waiting,  given  him 
a  chance,  if  he  hadn't  done  so  a  million  times  before,  to 
examine  every  ornament  in  the  little  glass  case,  and  when 
she  at  last  came  in,  her  pause  at  the  door  was  as  if  she  had 
stopped  to  gaze  out  over  imaginary  footlights.  The  bra 
vado  of  the  room  was  repeated  in  her  manner.  The  spin 
ster  look,  the  invalid's  shawl,  the  stiff,  starched  clothes,  the 
firmly  placed  glasses,  was  what  she  had  lately  endeavored 
to  avoid ;  and  her  endeavors  had  been  rewarded  by  complete 
success.  She  challenged  the  beholder  to  say  that  they  were 
not;  or  to  say,  on  the  other  hand,  that  she  had  gone  un 
necessarily  in  the  other  direction. 

"  Isn't  it  abominable  weather  ?  " 

"Frightful." 

"I  was  taking  a  nap." 

"  I  hope  I  didn't  wake  you  up." 

"No,  not  in  the  least." 


CELEBRITY  73 

She  sat  down  at  her  tea-table.  "  I  still  have  some  of  the 
cake  you  liked." 

"That's  cautious  of  you." 

"  Cautious?" 

"Placate  me  —  placate  me  —  give  the  animals  what 
they  want." 

"Ah  —  you  think  you  need  to  be  placated  with  wedding- 
cake?" 

"Heaven  forbid!  Was  it  wedding-cake?  I  didn't 
know." 

"Why  do  you  say,  '  heaven  forbid '  ?" 

"Because  wedding-cake  presupposes  weddings,  and  as 
the  only  wedding  that  at  all  concerns  me  would  be  either 
yours  or  mine,  why,  heaven  forbid  that  I  should  like  it !" 

"It  wouldn't  do,  would  it?  " 

"Hardly—" 

"Yet  think  of  the  joy  of  Cousin  Laura.  If  either  of  us 
married,  a  weight  would  be  lifted  from  her  soul." 

His  mother's  name  gave  Parrish  a  moment  of  embarrass 
ment.  Embarrassment  was  the  thing  which  had  most 
arisen  between  them  since  Hornmouth  and  that  afternoon, 
a  year  and  a  half  ago,  when  Emily  had  felt  the  need  of  ex 
plaining  him  to  the  representative  of  the  New  York  Star. 
In  the  little  yellow  house  there  hadn't  been  room  for  em 
barrassment;  it  had  been  so  full  of  Emily's  childhood  and 
Ralph's,  every  nook  and  corner  had  been  so  packed  with 
dreams  —  with  the  secrets  of  the  immortal  mind ;  and  the 
big  bare  room  —  the  desert  swept  by  a  cyclone  —  had  been 
so  occupied  by  those  of  the  less  immortal  body.  The  little 
yellow  house  had  had  all  it  could  do.  And  then  Dr.  Sted- 
man  had  left  it  for  a  more  eternal  dwelling,  and  his  daughter 
had  come  to  New  York. 


74  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

Fairish  watched  her  as  she  struggled  with  the  weight  of 
the  silver  tea-service.  He  always  watched  her  before  he 
went  to  her  assistance.  The  large  tea-pot  she  never  could 
quite  lift.  Parrish  cherished  the  rather  original  theory 
that  Emily,  that  daughter  of  science  and  learning,  was  at 
heart  a  barbarian.  The  solidity  of  her  silver  was  this 
theory's  strongest  proof.  Though  as  for  the  large  tea-pot, 
he  himself  had  presented  it  to  her. 

She  gave  him  his  tea  and  his  wedding-cake  without 
further  comment. 

"By  the  way,"  he  asked,  "how  did  you  happen  to  come 
by  such  an  immense  supply?" 

"Of  the  cake,  you  mean?  Why,  I  went  into  a  shop  and 
ordered  it." 

"  Yes,  I  know.    But  how  did  you  happen  to  do  that  ?  " 

"  I  wanted  the  shop-girl's  views  on  matrimony.  I  went 
to  a  shop  where  I  wasn't  known  — " 

"You  pretended  that  the  cake  was  for  yourself?" 

"Did  I  have  to  pretend?" 

"Oh,  good  Lord!— " 

Emily  looked  up  into  his  handsome,  amused  face.  "  You 
think  it's  childish  in  a  woman  of  my  age.  That  shows  that 
you  don't  know.  There  are  things  you  can't  begin  to  ap 
preciate  —  things  you  don't  possess  —  imagination  — " 

"And  after  imagination?" 

"After  that  a  realization  of  the  fleeting  nature  of  time, 
my  dear  Ralph." 

"You  don't  mean  I'm  to  go?" 

The  door-bell  pealed  out.    There  were  voices  in  the  hall. 

Parrish  rose.     "Perhaps  that  would  be  best." 

Emily  was  reading  a  card  which  the  maid  had  brought 


CELEBRITY  75 

in.  She  turned.  "But  you  mustn't  go — "  And  then 
more  sharply,  —  "  You  mustn't  go  !" 

"  If  it's  any  of  the  strange  beings  that  you  gather  in  from 
the  roadside — " 

"That's  just  what  it  is.  Ah,  Mrs.  Hellish,  my  abomi 
nable  cousin  here  was  on  the  point  of  running  away." 

Mrs.  Mellish  smiled  archly.  "We  mustn't  let  him  do 
that!"  Archness  didn't  become  her.  Parrish  reflected 
that  few  things  would.  He  resigned  himself  to  his  unlucky 
fate.  The  lady  considered  herself  a  patron  of  the  arts,  so 
he  had  heard,  and  in  her  leisure  moments  dabbled  in  spirit 
ualism.  She  pressed  Emily's  hand  in  both  her  own.  "  My 
dear,  how  are  you?  How  is  the  great  work?" 

"My  book?" 

"  Yes,  your  new  book.  We  wait  breathless.  What  is  it 
to  be?  Tell  me,  Mr.  Parrish,  is  it  another  'Cuckoo'  ?" 

"I  don't  know,  I'm  sure.  Miss  Stedman  doesn't  confide 
in  me  about  her  work." 

"  Really  —  really  ?  I  should  insist.  And  what  did  you 
think  of  her  article  in  last  Sunday's  Courier?" 

"  I  don't  think  Mr.  Parrish  sees  the  Courier." 

"No?  But  you  should  have  seen  it  on  Sunday,  Mr. 
Parrish.  The  article  was  called  '  Views  on  Matrimony  — 
Gathered  by  the  Author  of  "The  Cuckoo."  '  Well  worth 
reading,  I  assure  you." 

Parrish  looked  at  the  tea-table.  "That  explains  it,  the 
cake  —  I  see  —  I  see  — " 

"One  must  live,"  said  Emily,  "and  the  Courier  pays." 

"It's  well  for  the  author  of  'The  Cuckoo'  to  talk  of 
paying!" 

Emily  smiled.    "The  reports  of  my  royalties  have  been 


76  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

exaggerated.  I  must  make  the  most  of  my  opportu 
nity." 

Fairish  accused  her  of  a  thirst  for  gold. 

She  denied  it.  It  wasn't  so  much  a  thirst  for  gold  that 
she  had,  as  a  dread  of  a  lack  of  it.  Poverty  meant  Horn- 
mouth,  and  an  acceptance  of  her  Cousin  Laura's  invitation 
to  live  with  her.  She  was  still  pushing  on  to  the  undis 
covered  country.  Hornmouth  she  knew.  Her  Cousin 
Laura  she  knew.  She  was  even  beginning  to  feel  that  she 
knew  Ralph  Parrish.  Her  telling  him  so,  however,  was 
always  provocative  of  his  favorite,  "Oh,  good  Lord !  — " 

in 

Instead  of  a  vortex  of  perpetual  motion,  Emily  Stedman 
had  found  New  York  a  city  of  magnificent  quiet.  The 
vortex  might  go  on  outside  her  doors ;  but  her  little  apart 
ment  in  the  late  thirties  was  the  centre  of  calm  in  its  midst 
—  a  calm  more  absolute  than  any  Hornmouth  had  ever 
provided.  There  was  a  sense  all  about  her  of  the  life  of 
many  people;  her  windows  looked  out  over  the  roofs  of 
many  houses;  and  yet  the  view  from  her  big  writing-table 
was  one  of  sky  and  sun  rather  than  of  the  disfigurements 
devised  by  man.  Emily  had  never  lost  the  feeling  which 
had  come  to  her  on  first  arriving,  —  first  seeing  New  York 
from  the  steps  of  the  Grand  Central  Station,  —  that  of  being 
closer  to  nature  than  she  ever  had  been  before.  Even  the 
great  white  buildings  which  reared  their  heads  into  her 
daily  kingdom  of  sky  and  sun  seemed  far  more  a  part  of 
nature  than  had  seemed  the  bare  New  England  hills  she 
had  left.  And  at  night  —  when  the  hotels  had  turned  into 
shells  of  light  and  the  office  buildings  were  mere  black 


CELEBRITY  77 

masses  against  the  sky,  and  she  had  drawn  back  her  cur 
tains  and  sat  quite  in  the  dark  gazing  out  —  she  was  not 
only  near  to  nature;  she  was  alone  with  it. 

The  little  poets  and  the  little  scribblers  who  flocked  to 
her  success  were  a  less  necessary  part  of  her  existence  than 
Ralph  Parrish  supposed.  Individually  they  were  nothing 
to  her,  and  collectively  they  were  the  allegorical  figures 
in  the  decorative  canvas  of  her  celebrity.  And  when  she 
arrived  at  her  real  celebrity,  —  the  celebrity  quite  apart 
from  notoriety,  —  allegorical  figures  would  be  in  the  way. 
This  real  celebrity  was  yet  to  come.  She  was  writing  a  new 
book  in  whose  wake  celebrity  was  to  follow.  She  had  al 
ready  named  it,  "Mrs.  Dallowfield."  The  audience  she 
had  made  with  "The  Cuckoo"  wouldn't  like  it,  and  would 
wonder  at  her  not  having  continued  in  the  path  she  had 
marked  out  for  herself;  but  "Mrs.  Dallowfield"  could  find 
an  audience  of  her  own. 

The  book  was  to  be  solid  with  the  quality  which  flashes 
here  and  there  through  "The  Blind  Alley,"  and  makes  up 
for  all  the  transparent  patches  and  the  stumblings  —  the 
quality  which  even  brushes  the  flagrant  "Cuckoo"  with  the 
tip  of  its  wing.  This  was  the  quality  of  Emily  Stedman's 
genius.  It  was  as  elusive  as  a  hat  lost  in  a  wind,  and  she 
was  forcing  it,  inch  by  inch,  to  the  service  of  "  Mrs.  Dallow 
field."  It  was  like  making  a  loaf  of  bread  entirely  of  yeast. 
There  were  times  when  she  was  appalled  at  the  difficulty 
of  her  task.  As  well  build,  single  handed,  one  of  the  great 
structures  outside  her  window  as  represent  life  through  the 
medium  of  language.  Or  perhaps  it  was  easy  enough  to 
represent  it  if  you  really  saw  it.  And  there  were  times  when 
she  was  appalled  in  the  other  direction.  She  would  stop 


78  OTHER   PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

short  and  gaze  out,  unseeing.  "Mrs.  Dallowfield,"  in  her 
mortal  dress  of  yellow  paper  traced  by  ink,  seemed  so 
precious  as  to  be  almost  holy.  The  glory  of  "Mrs.  Dal- 
lowfield's"  future  didn't  bear  thinking  of.  Her  creator's 
state  of  mind  might  be  compared  to  that  of  a  man  on  the 
eve  of  his  marriage  with  the  woman  of  his  choice. 

Ralph  Parrish  didn't  care  the  snap  of  his  ringer  for  the 
glory  of  "  Mrs.  Dallowfield's  "  future ;  that  was  one  thing,  and 
he  quite  another.  They  were  two  separate  forces  meeting 
only  subconsciously  in  his  cousin's  complete  assimilation, 
and  consequent  employment,  of  his  own  wider  field  of  view. 
Her  own  was  of  necessity  cramped.  Her  frequently  re 
clining  posture  gave  her  an  opportunity  of  studying  the 
ceiling  rather  at  the  expense  of  other  opportunities,  and  even 
her  view  of  the  ceiling  ran  risk  of  obliqueness.  But  if  she 
herself  had  been  in  the  thick  of  the  fray,  how  could  she  pos 
sibly  have  written  about  it  without  spoiling  her  pen  and 
blotting  her  paper?  Ralph  Parrish  had  no  pen  to  spoil 
and  no  paper  to  blot. 

It  was  a  Saturday,  and  still  November.  Six  months  would 
make  it  May;  in  May,  Emily  thought,  "Mrs.  Dallowfield" 
would  emerge  from  chaos,  a  completed  creation  —  in  May, 
if  all  went  well,  without  pain  and  without  a  darkened 
room.  The  pain  came  in  sharp  thrusts  of  torture  above 
her  eyes  and  at  the  back  of  her  neck,  and  the  darkened 
room  followed.  It  was  Dr.  Jeffries  who  insisted,  and 
Emily  took  it  for  granted  that  Dr.  Jeffries  knew.  His  bill 
would  indicate  it;  but  he  didn't  display  his  knowledge 
when  he  advised  her  against  work,  for  without  work  how 
would  his  bill  be  paid  ?  Perhaps  he  thought  that  without 
a  darkened  room  there  would  be  no  work.  Emily  sat  at  her 


CELEBRITY  79 

big  table  surrounded  by  "Mrs.  Dallowfield's "  dismembered 
parts.  It  was  one  of  the  times  when  she  was  weighed  down 
by  the  magnitude  of  her  undertaking  —  aghast  at  her  own 
temerity.  Yet  she  knew,  through  some  inner  conscious 
ness  blessed  of  the  artist,  that  in  her  hands  the  consum 
mation  of  "Mrs.  Dallowfield"  was  safe.  It  kept  her  up, 
this  inner  consciousness;  it  bridged  the  periods  when  the 
skill  seemed  gone  from  her  pen;  but  now  she  had  no  need 
of  it;  she  was  stopping  work  for  the  day;  it  was  Saturday 
and  Ralph  Parrish  was  coming  to  lunch. 

Afterwards  they  were  to  see  a  much-talked-of  actress, 
a  Russian ;  her  play  was  Russian,  too,  but  in  ,a  play  of  that 
sort  the  language  wouldn't  matter.  Emily  meditated  on 
the  subject  of  plays.  Her  own  "Cuckoo"  had  been 
dramatized,  and  had  failed.  Success  so  largely  depended 
on  the  popularity  of  the  actor.  Parrish  had  seen  the  Rus 
sian  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  she  was  not  without  honor  even 
in  her  own  country.  The  door-bell  rang.  That  was  the 
consequence  of  living  in  an  apartment;  even  in  the  late 
thirties  all  one's  guests  were  sharply  heralded. 

"I  came  up  straight."     It  was  Parrish. 

"You  didn't  go  to  the  club  first?" 

"  No.    You're  not  ready  ?  " 

Emily  explained  her  lateness  by  his  promptness. 
"You'll  wait?  Lunch  isn't  till  one."  She  left  him  in 
order  to  make  amends  for  her  negligence. 

It  seemed  his  most  frequent  occupation  —  that  of  waiting 
for  his  cousin.  He  waited  for  her  in  railway  stations  and 
in  her  apartment  in  the  late  thirties  —  mostly  the  latter 
—  which  also  gave  him  the  before-mentioned,  much-to-be- 
desired  opportunity  to  examine  the  ornaments  in  the  little 


80  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

glass  case.  It  was  an  opportunity  which  he  again  didn't 
take  advantage  of.  The  newest  page  of  "  Mrs.  Dallowfield," 
with  the  ink  barely  dry,  topped  the  yellow  pad  on  the  big 
table.  He  was  aware  that  in  glancing  at  it  he  was  a  little 
outside  his  cousinly  privilege. 

"  —  not  agree  with  you — "  and  then  quotation  marks. 
Obviously  the  end  of  a  sentence.  There  was  a  new  para 
graph  —  quotation  marks  again.  He  read :  — 

"  But  it  has  no  reality,  I  assure  you.  That  little  moment 
when  they  thought  it  had,  that  brought  the  reality  nearer. 
I  had  a  sense  of  triumph.  I've  reached  out  after  the  tan 
gible  so  many  times,  and  that  was  the  nearest  that  I  ever 
came.  In  heaven  one's  greatest  possession  may  be  an  eter 
nal  peace  of  soul;  but  on  earth  one's  greatest  possession  is 
something  much  more  like  war.  I  say  'one'  advisedly. 
It's  only  the  picked  few  who  have  it  —  who  are  allowed  it. 
For  appreciation  is  as  necessary  to  the  full  enjoyment — " 

The  sentence  was  unfinished.  Parrish  wondered  what 
Emily  was  talking  about  now.  In  a  finished  state  her  ideas 
might  be  more  clear,  though  they  were  always  prone  to 
vagueness.  Vagueness,  however,  wasn't  a  fault  of  "The 
Cuckoo's."  He  wondered  if  it  was  true,  what  people  said, 
that  she  had  genius.  The  word  meant  little  to  him,  less 
than  what  people  said.  That  brought  to  him  the  thought 
of  something  else  they  said ;  he  didn't  have  to  wonder  if 
that  were  true.  Had  he  reread  the  newest  page  of  "Mrs. 
Dallowfield,"  he  might  have  found  there  an  idea  faintly 
pertinent,  even  though  unfinished.  But  he  might  have 
balked  at  the  analogy  thus  implied  between  himself  and 
war.  For  a  man  of  such  great  physical  strength  he  was 
rather  markedly  on  the  side  of  peace.  He  still  waited. 


CELEBRITY  81 

He  should  have  gone  to  the  club  first.  A  maid,  becapped 
and  beruffled,  a  being  quite  other  than  the  stern  hand 
maiden  of  Hornmouth,  announced  lunch. 

"  Miss  Stedman  wishes  you  to  have  it.  She  will  be  with 
you  directly  — " 

No,  he  couldn't  do  that.  His  impatience  wasn't  a  matter 
of  hunger.  He  hoped  that  his  cousin's  delay  didn't  mean 
a  toilet  even  more  striking  than  usual.  At  best,  they  were 
a  conspicuous  couple.  It  was  a  conspicuousness  that  Par- 
rish  disliked;  it  gave  him  a  sense  of  awkwardness,  like 
having  to  stoop  in  order  to  pass  through  a  door  that  is  too 
low.  His  conspicuousness  was  a  gift  of  nature  —  Emily's 
wasn't.  Others,  less  contrasting,  might  pass  unnoticed; 
they  never  did ;  and  it  was  this  double  glory  to  which  Par- 
rish  objected.  Emily,  on  the  other  hand,  seemed  to  court 
it.  She  was  very  much  of  a  child,  thought  her  cousin,  in 
spite  of  her  celebrity  and  her  thirty  odd  years  —  a  child 
as  well  as  a  barbarian. 

The  woman  for  whom  he  seemed  to  spend  so  much  of 
his  time  in  waiting  had  also,  he  was  afraid,  a  child's  appall 
ing,  unreasoning  fickleness.  She  had  a  phrase,  constantly 
used,  "When  a  thing  has  outlived  its  usefulness — . "  It 
had  an  almost  commercial  ring.  But  she  meant  it  in  its 
more  aesthetic  sense  —  when  a  thing  was  for  her  no  longer 
beautiful,  that  was  the  moment  to  let  it  go.  She  used  the 
adjective  in  its  broadest  meaning,  though  with  Parrish  she 
could  have  used  it  in  its  narrowest.  But  Parrish  flattered 
himself  that  it  was  something  more  than  his  mere  physical 
perfection  which  had  kept  his  usefulness  alive,  yet  it  surely 
wasn't  his  beauty  of  soul,  and  he  was  incapable  of  further 
probing.  He  was  afraid  that  this  highly  desirable  attribute 


82  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

— whatever  it  was — might  be  suddenly,  unwittingly  lost.  A 
sudden  movement  might  stir  and  disturb  it  beyond  hope; 
though  a  movement  in  just  the  right  direction .  .  .  What 
was  the  right  direction  ?  He  found  himself  in  the  awkward 
predicament  of  not  knowing.  He  usually  had  a  certain 
rough  intuition  about  women,  the  sort  of  sense  by  which  a 
mountaineer  finds  his  way  down  the  side  of  a  mountain; 
but  with  his  cousin  this  path-finding  instinct  failed  him. 
That  was  her  greatest  attraction,  her  special  little  attribute. 
Even  if  she  were  but  a  pale  literary  lady,  —  part  New  Eng 
land  old  maid  and  part  barbarian,  —  he  liked  her  better  and 
longer  than  any  woman  he  had  ever  known.  He  had  wild 
moments  of  wondering  whether  he  mightn't  eventually 
ask  her  to  marry  him.  But  before  he  could  make  up  his 
mind,  there  always  appeared  the  lowering  possibility  that 
she  might  refuse  him.  And  opposed  to  this,  and  even  more 
distasteful,  was  the  possibility  that  marriage  was  her  end 
and  aim. 

Whatever  it  was  she  wanted  with  him,  she  was  so  con 
structed  that  when  she  got  it  she  would  want  it  no  longer. 
His  usefulness  would  be  outlived,  his  mysterious  attribute 
gone.  She  might,  of  course,  never  get  it  —  that  was  his 
safety  —  a  safety  almost  feminine.  And  then  Parrish's 
rough,  path-finding  thought  came  back  to  the  sad  mistake 
of  a  movement  in  the  wrong  direction.  His  dread  had  the 
quality  of  a  premonition.  He  felt  that  he  stood  in  imminent 
danger  of  losing  his  unfathomable  one.  That  sudden, 
injuring,  stirring  movement  might  be  made  by  another  than 
himself,  by  one  whose  knowledge  of  the  right  direction 
would  dwell  at  his  finger-tips.  But  Parrish  couldn't  guard 
against  that  —  he  centred  all  his  energies  upon  keeping 


CELEBEITY  83 

himself  just  where  he  was.    If  the  accomplishment  of  this 
feat  gave  a  handle  to  scandal,  why,  he  regretted  it  deeply. 

rv 

"Ah,  you  wore  the  brown  dress !  — "  Parrish's  tone  dis 
played  his  relief. 

Emily,  reentering  the  room  after  her  prolonged  absence, 
responded  to  this  with  one  word  —  "Lunch !" 

"Is  it  ready?" 

"  Long  ago  —  didn't  you  know  ?  You  should  have  had 
it." 

"Oh,  that  was  all  right.  I  didn't  want  it.  I  imagine 
that  the  Russian  can  wait." 

Emily  was  putting  away  "Mrs.  Dallowfield."  "And 
I  thought  that  Russians  were  such  an  impatient  lot. 
You'll  have  to  translate  her  bit  by  bit,  you  know." 

"If  you're  depending  on  me  to  translate  the  play,  why, 
I  don't  speak  Russian." 

"You've  been  there." 

"  Yes,  but  I've  always  had  to  manage  with  French." 

Emily's  dining  room  opened  directly  out  of  her  parlor. 
When  the  white-painted  folding  doors  were  at  their  widest, 
the  two  rooms  seemed  one;  half  closed  there  was  visible 
a  pretty  vista  of  polished  mahogany  and  silver.  To  the 
pair  who  finally  sat  down  to  a  long-delayed  meal,  the  vista 
was  the  other  way  about;  but  that  also  was  pretty,  and 
though  opposite  one  to  another,  they  were  so  seated  as  to 
both  have  the  advantage  of  it.  Conversation  at  Emily's 
very  often  took  the  form  of  comment  on  the  use  she  had 
made  of  her  space  —  the  success  of  her  decorative  scheme. 
She  was  always  adding  some  new  bit  which  provoked 


84  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

admiration,  or  moving  those  she  already  had.  Her  friends 
were  quite  in  the  habit  of  breaking  their  necks  over  furniture 
freshly  arranged.  The  big  writing-table  had  to  be  by  the 
windows  in  one  room  and  the  dining-table  remain  in  the 
middle  of  the  other;  but  beyond  that  they  never  could  be 
sure.  Ralph  Parrish  was  the  only  person  fully  initiated 
into  the  puzzle  of  his  cousin's  changes.  He  usually  made 
them  with  her,  lending  his  strong  hand  to  the  new  placing 
of  a  sofa  or  the  rehanging  of  a  picture.  It  had  been  on  the 
previous  day  that  he  had  assisted  in  moving  the  piano. 

"Do  you  think  it  looks  well  now?"  Emily  asked.  Her 
eyes  had  been  fixed  on  it  as  she  drank  her  soup. 

"Yes,  very  well." 

"  You  see,  where  I  had  it  before,  it  was  rather  in  the  way. 
If  the  room  were  two  feet  wider  — " 

"If  you'd  taken  the  apartment  downstairs,  the  room 
there  is  fully  that." 

"  Yes,  Ralph,  I  know,  but  I  like  the  view  here." 

"And  nine  weary  nights  of  stairs  when  the  elevator 
stops." 

"  Yes  —  the  other  night  —  you  told  me,  and  how  Mrs. 
Mellish  said  she  would  never  come  to  supper  here  again. 
But  she  will;  she  would  come  again  if  there  were  twenty 
flights  of  stairs  to  go  down." 

"How  so?" 

"How  so?  Why,  she'd  sell  her  soul  to  find  out  about 
me." 

"What  is  there  to  find?" 

"  Nothing  whatever.  But  curiosity  about  me  is  as  gen 
eral  as  it's  unaccountable.  I'm  like  a  mongrel  dog,  fright 
fully  imperfect,  but  with  an  individual  kink  to  its  tail  and 


CELEBRITY  85 

set  to  its  jaw.  I'm  a  sort  of  an  anachronism  —  or  is  it 
anomaly?" 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  know."  He  was  amused  at  her  volu 
bility;  her  tendency  to  chatter  was  one  she  generally  had 
the  strength  to  control.  But  to-day  she  was  tired,  and, 
on  the  top  of  that,  she  was  excited.  It  was  one  of  her  mo 
ments,  comparatively  rare,  of  being  excited  by  him.  Like 
sweet  wine,  Parrish  required  the  right  moment  —  the  more 
so,  as  instead  of  following  the  usual  course  of  wines,  he  had 
come  with  the  years  to  an  occasional  flavor  of  syrup.  Still, 
there  he  was,  always  a  bottle  ready  in  her  cellar;  and  the 
cellars  of  pale  literary  ladies  are  in  that  direction  none  too 
widely  stocked.  They  must  slake  their  thirst  as  they  may, 
and  thank  their  good  Lord  for  the  chance.  Emily,  brought 
up  in  an  atmosphere  of  science,  didn't  believe  that  she  had 
a  good  Lord ;  but  even  if  she  had,  her  thanks  would  not  have 
been  too  tempered  by  reservations.  A  life  which  didn't 
contain  at  least  a  substitute  for  Ralph  Parrish  was  beyond 
her  conception. 

They  were  not  as  late  for  the  theatre  as  they  had  expected 
to  be,  or  perhaps  the  Russian  idea  of  time  lacked  precision, 
for  the  curtain  rose  as  they  took  their  seats.  In  spite  of  the 
shortness  of  her  life  in  New  York,  Emily  had  already  seen 
more  than  one  production  of  the  play,  "Hedda  Gabler." 
It  made  to  her  a  very  strong  appeal  —  she  refused,  even,  to 
consider  it  wholly  pessimism.  Besides  its  marital  infelici 
ties  and  sudden  deaths,  it  had,  she  thought,  an  apprecia 
tion  of  the  joy  of  living.  She  had  seen  the  title  role  played 
by  an  Englishwoman  who  brought  to  it  a  magnificent 
physique  and  an  infinite  capacity  for  portraying  boredom, 
and  again  by  a  young,  much-talked-of  actress,  a  panther- 


86  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

like  lady  whose  attraction  was  none  the  less  sensuous  for 
being  a  matter  of  angles  rather  than  of  curves.  But  this 
soft  little  Russian,  whose  obviously  Slavic  origin  seemed 
so  oddly  at  variance  with  her  blondeness,  who  sent  the  con 
ventional  conception  of  Hedda  Gabler  to  the  four  winds 
of  heaven  and  made  of  her  a  smooth  kitten  purring  by  the 
domestic  hearth,  this  soft  little  Russian  held  her  in  her 
easy  grasp  and  brought  the  hard  tears  close  upon  the 
laughter.  The  alien  tongue  was  forgotten  in  the  under 
standing  which  seemed  to  stretch  across  the  footlights  from 
the  actress  to  the  writer  —  an  understanding  which  had 
to  make  up,  hi  part,  for  the  absolute  lack  of  it  existing 
between  the  actress  and  the  majority  of  her  audience. 
But  as  Emily  said  to  Parrish  at  the  end  of  the  first  act, 
turning  towards  him  as  she  did  so  a  tense,  white  little  face, 
"The  glory  of  knowing  that  you  yourself  are  great  is  the 
only  true  glory." 

For  Emily,  however,  there  were  really  other  glories,  of 
which  not  the  least  was  that  of  finding  herself  happy. 
On  this  afternoon  she  was  as  purring,  as  contented,  as  the 
Russian  kitten  who  basked  before  the  stage  fire  across  the 
footlights;  but  her  enjoyment  was  a  finer  thing  than  mere 
contentment;  it  came  from  nerves  stretched  tautly  in  tune 
and  the  perfect  pairing  of  circumstance.  For  Parrish  was 
seated  beside  her,  and  she  was  witness  of  an  histrionic  art 
to  which  she  would  have  taken  off  her  hat  even  if  to  do 
so  hadn't  been  a  theatre  rule.  She  was  emotionally  at  the 
crest  of  the  wave;  she  had  reached  that  high  point  of  appre 
ciation  which  so  made  for  her  quality  of  genius.  And  she 
had  the  happy  faculty  of  impressing  upon  Parrish  her  own 
mood  —  he  saw  things  through  her  which,  except  through 


CELEBRITY  87 

her,  he  wouldn't  have  seen.  It  was  a  faculty  almost  on  the 
borderland  of  hypnotism,  of  telepathy.  It  is  certain  at  least 
that  she  could  consciously  or  unconsciously  acquaint  him 
with  her  thought  without  the  awkward  wordy  medium. 
Ideas  sometimes  floated  about  in  his  spacious  head  which 
could  be  accounted  for  in  no  other  way;  it  was  one  of  the 
reasons  why  he  liked  her  so  much.  She  acted  as  an  inter 
preter  of  himself  to  himself;  she  seemed  to  cast  a  brilliant 
light  by  which  he  found  it  possible  to  see.  He  saw  her  there 
in  the  seat  beside  him  with  a  wonderful  clearness;  he  saw 
the  play  almost  as  she  did. 

In  the  second  act  was  the  scene  between  Hedda  and  her 
former  lover  over  the  photograph  album,  conceived  by  the 
Russian  kitten  in  a  spirit  of  barely  sheathed  claws.  It  is 
a  scene  in  itself  great,  but  with  the  Russian  kitten  it  didn't 
have  to  be:  "Ah,  hush ! —  That  was  my  name  in  the  old 
days  when  we  two  knew  each  other  —  I  can't  allow  this." 
And  at  the  entrance  of  Tesman,  her  husband,  "This  is  the 
view  from  the  Val  d'Ampezzo,  Mr.  Lovborg.  Oh,  yes,  there 
are  the  Dolamites — "  the  husband  leaves —  "You  may 
think  'du,'  but  you  mustn't  say  it."  Her  lover  speaks  of 
theirs  having  been  a  comradeship  in  the  thirst  for  life  — 
recalls  her  threat  to  shoot  him,  thinks  her  not  having  done 
so  cowardice  —  "But  my  not  shooting  you  wasn't  the  way 
in  which  I  most  showed  cowardice  !  "  She  persuades  him 
to  go  to  a  supper  at  the  house  of  Judge  Brack.  Drink 
ing  had  been  one  of  his  vices  before  his  reformation,  and  at 
the  supper  drinking  will  obviously  be  the  chief  source  of 
entertainment;  but  in  recklessness  Lovborg  goes.  JBe 
is  to  return  at  ten  o'clock  in  order  to  take  home  Mrs.  Elv- 
sted.  Mrs.  Elvsted  is  the  woman  who  has  worked  his 


88  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

reformation,  and  an  old  friend  and  schoolmate  of  Hedda's. 
"Oh,  Hedda,  why  did  you  do  that?  Why  did  you  send 
him?"  "It  will  give  him  control  of  himself  —  he  will  be 
a  free  man  for  the  rest  of  his  life."  "He  will  come  back  at 
ten  ?  "  "  As  I  see  him  —  so  and  no  otherwise  —  " 

They  sat  there,  Emily  and  Parrish,  he  seeing  it  almost  as 
she  did,  and  knowing  with  another  attention,  not  occupied 
with  the  drama,  that  she  was  there  in  the  seat  beside  him, 
she  uplifted  to  a  point  of  appreciation  which  was  in  itself 
genius.  With  her  as  with  him,  it  was  the  perfect  pairing 
of  circumstance,  the  two  dominating  presences,  that  counted 

—  each  other  and  the  art  of  the  Russian  kitten.     But  the 
Russian  was  a  kitten  no  longer.     She  paused  with  her  hand 
raised  to  the  red  hangings  of  the  Tesman  drawing-room. 
She  was  very  quiet,  very  still,  and  her  voice  —  when  it  came 

—  had  in  it  the  surprise  of  a  spring,    "To-night  at  ten 
o'clock  Eilert  Lovborg  will  be  here  with  vine  leaves  in  his 
hair !  " 

Ralph  Parrish  knew  enough  Russian  to  understand  that. 
"Ah  — Emmy!— " 

Something  seemed  to  leap  between  them  in  the  half 
darkness. 

The  sluggish  audience  was  moved  to  a  faint  applause, 
and  in  response  the  curtain  slowly  reascended.  The  actress 
was  yet  standing  there,  her  hand  raised  among  the  draperies 

—  very  quiet,  very  still  —  and  succeeding  in  attaining, 
in  spite  of  her  stillness,  to  the  absolute  presentation  of  hu 
man  passion.    She  showed  it  to  you  in  its  fine,  hard  essence; 
it  was  as  if  you  had  beheld  the  interdicted  contents  of  a 
suddenly  opened  box. 

Emily  and  Parrish  gave  the  effect  of  blinking  a  little  hi 


CELEBRITY  89 

the  full  glare  of  lights.  Emily,  with  her  store  of  invalid 
memories,  was  reminded  of  a  sick-room  at  night  suddenly 
illuminated  by  the  nurse.  Light,  then,  —  as  it  does  at  no 
other  time,  —  forces  its  color  upon  the  consciousness.  The 
color  of  the  light  that  flooded  the  front  of  the  house  was 
nearly  white.  Emily  remembered  that  long  afterwards 
—  that  and  the  excitement  which  possessed  her,  which  was 
more  than  appreciation,  more  than  contentment,  more 
than  tuned  nerves. 

"Ralph,  there's  some  one  trying  to  bow  to  you  — " 

"Where?" 

"  Don't  you  see  —  in  that  box,  the  extraordinary  old 
woman  dressed  in  black,  holding  the  opera-glasses?" 

"  By  Jove  !  It's  the  Princess  Karina !  Pardon  me  just 
for  a  moment."  Parrish  was  obviously  stirred. 


CHAPTER  V 

ANTICLIMAXES 


JOHN  BARLOW  was  engaged  in  his  favorite  occupation  — 
that  of  looking  at  his  son.  It  was,  he  told  Emily,  an  occu 
pation  he'd  had  little  enough  chance  at  of  late;  and  the 
spectacle  of  the  young  David  familiarly  seated  in  his  own 
drawing-room,  even  though  he  was  talking  with  a  Russian 
princess,  warmed  the  very  cockles  of  the  elder  Barlow's 
heart. 

"  Yes,  it's  good  to  have  him  back  —  it's  good  to  have 
him  back.  It  was  a  year  ago  last  summer  that  I  left  him. 
He  came  with  me  as  far  as  Paris  and  then  suddenly  decided 
to  come  no  farther." 

"  Your  son  went  with  you  as  far  as  Paris  and  then  didn't 
return  to  America?" 

"  You  see  it  was  like  this.  We  were  cruising  in  the  Medi 
terranean,  and  when  we  left  the  Mediterranean,  David  went 
with  us  as  far  as  Paris ;  and  then,  instead  of  coming  on  to 
New  York,  he  stayed  in  Paris.  In  fact,  I  believe  that  he 
afterwards  went  back  to  the  Mediterranean.  He's  a  queer 
boy.  And  at  one  time  I  thought  he  would  some  day  make 
a  name  for  himself  in  the  law." 

"Oh,  but  he  yet  may !"  Emily  was  feigning  an  interest 
which  she  did  not  feel.  John  Barlow  was  her  host  at  a 
dinner  of  which  she  and  the  Princess  Karina  were  the  guests 

90 


ANTICLIMAXES  91 

of  honor,  and  if  he  desired  to  talk  about  his  son  it  was  for  her 
to  follow  in  his  lead.  He  couldn't  talk  about  his  son,  to  the 
Princess  Karina;  he  lacked  a  language  in  which  to  do  so. 

"I  can't  say  that  I  agree  with  you,  Miss  Stedman;  I 
think  that  David's  law  was  a  castle  in  Spain.  And  of  course 
it  isn't  as  if  he  had  to  earn  his  living;  but  still,  I  should  like 
to  see  him  make  a  name.  I  don't  mind  confiding  to 
you  that  I  should  like  to  see  him  famous.  He's  got  it  in 
him!" 

"Perhaps  he'll  marry  a  famous  woman,"  said  Emily. 

"You,  for  instance." 

Emily  laughed.    "Why  not  the  Princess  Karina?" 

"Oh,  she's  a  bit  old  for  David.  He's  only  twenty-five, 
you  know." 

"Really?  He  seems  more  than  that.  But  he's  the  sort 
of  young  man  with  whom  age  doesn't  matter.  The  day 
I  first  saw  him  he  was  with  the  princess,  and  most  devoted." 

"When  was  that?" 

"  I  was  with  my  cousin,  Ralph  Parrish,  at  the  theatre." 

"And  he  was  at  the  theatre?" 

"He  and  the  princess.  My  cousin  knew  her  in  Russia, 
and  she  was  so  kind  as  to  remember  him.  She  invited 
us  to  sit  with  them  in  her  box  —  or  rather  to  sit  with  her, 
for  when  she  first  saw  us  she  was  alone.  Your  son  had  gone 
out  to  get  a  programme,  and  he  returned  to  find  us  en 
sconced.  He  wasn't  pleased." 

The  father  protested.  "Why,  yes,  he  was  —  he  was 
pleased  to  death.  He  told  me  he  was.  'I've  just  had  the 
pleasure  of  spending  an  hour  in  the  company  of  Emily 
Stedman.'  'You  don't  mean  the  woman  who  wrote  "The 
Cuckoo"?' I  asked.  'The  very  same  — '  And  as  for  the 


92  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

princess,  she  was  shouting  with  joy,  'You  must  have  her 
here  —  you  must  have  her  here — '  David  translated  it 
for  us,  and  you  see  we  did  our  best !" 

"  So  the  princess  is  staying  with  you  ?    I  didn't  know  — " 

"Yes.  She's  been  intending  to  make  the  trip  for  years. 
She's  always  heard  so  much  about  New  York,  and  never 
having  been  here,  —  never  even  having  been  in  America,  — 
she  felt  rather  out  of  it.  She  finally  made  up  her  mind  just 
at  the  time  that  David  was  coming  back,  so  he  looked  after 
her  a  bit  on  the  steamer  and  then  brought  her  straight 
here.  She  hates  hotels." 

"Ah,"  said  Emily,  "you  see  he  is  devoted !" 

"Yes;  but  not  to  the  Princess  Karina." 

"Then  there  is  some  one — "  It  struck  Emily  that  she 
was  carrying  her  feigned  interest  too  far.  If  Mr.  Barlow 
wished  to  discuss  with  her  the  affairs  of  his  son,  that  was 
his  business;  but  considering  the  fact  of  her  having,  up  to 
a  month  ago,  never  so  much  as  heard  of  the  Barlows,  it 
would  be  easy  for  her  to  be  accused  of  prying. 

"If  he  were  devoted  in  the  way  you  say,"  said  Mr.  Bar 
low,  "he'd  hardly  be  batting  about  Europe  with  her  and 
coming  over  on  the  steamer  with  her  and  bringing  her  here. 
Would  he  now?"  David's  father  smilingly  demanded  a 
denial.  "Would  he?" 

At  that  moment  Emily's  impression  of  the  Barley  Bun 
King  was  very  much  that  which  had  so  attracted  Mme. 
Rostov.  As  he  sat  there  facing  her  in  his  big  gilded  parlor, 
his  legs  crossed,  his  whole  being  expressive  of  the  content 
ment  of  a  strong  man  newly  fed,  the  impression  he  made 
on  her  was  of  tremendous  power.  How  could  the  son  of 
a  man  like  that  fail  to  be  an  anticlimax  ? 


ANTICLIMAXES  93 

She  finally  brought  out  the  thing  demanded  of  her. 
"Well,  no,  I  suppose  he  wouldn't  —  not  in  just  that  way. 
But  tell  me,  isn't  it  a  rather  complicated  process,  having 
a  lady  of  the  rank  of  princess  staying  in  the  same  house  with 
you  —  and  that  house  yours  ?  Aren't  there  questions 
which  constantly  arise?  I  always  imagined  a  princess  as 
travelling  in  state  with  a  host  of  retainers,  and  having  at 
hotels  the  royal  suite." 

"  Oh,  it's  nothing  like  that.  Merely  a  maid,  so  my  wife 
tells  me,  and  meals  in  her  room  at  peculiar  hours." 

"It's  good  of  you— " 

"  Not  at  all ;  we  feel  honored.  And  besides,  David 
insists." 

Emily  looked  up.  "And  I  suppose  that  you're  glad  to 
get  David  at  any  price  —  even  with  the  princess." 

"Yes,  if  he'll  stay." 

"Does  he  think  of  returning  to  the  Mediterranean?" 

"I  can't  make  out  that  he  does." 

The  subject  of  all  this  discussion  came  up  at  this.  He 
had  left  the  princess  in  the  safe  hands  of  Ralph  Parrish,  and 
he  felt  that  the  moment  had  arrived  to  devote  himself  to 
her  whose  celebrity  was  a  thing  of  her  own  making. 

"What  is  it,  father,  that  you  can't  make  out?" 

John  Barlow  seemed  fairly  caught.  Emily  gave  him  her 
aid.  "We  were  discussing  your  affairs  in  the  most  shame 
less  manner  —  hoping  that  the  Mediterranean  wouldn't 
again  claim  you." 

The  younger  Barlow  laughed.  "You  speak  as  if  the 
Mediterranean  were  a  devouring  beast!" 

"  Why  not  a  siren  who  sits  upon  a  rock  combing  her  hair 
in  the  sunlight?" 


94  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"Who  forever  calls  me  into  the  deeps?"  asked  David. 

"Put  it  like  that." 

"Who  knows  but  that  I  may  go?" 

"Where  — into  the  deeps?" 

"No,  back  to  the  Mediterranean."  David  Barlow  had 
an  ease  of  manner  rather  surprising  in  one  so  young  — 
so  young,  and  at  the  same  time  so  masculine.  Ease,  in 
this  particular,  presupposes  precocity,  and  precocity  usually 
follows  in  the  wake  of  effeminateness.  David  Barlow's 
precocity  was  less  a  matter  of  character  than  of  circum 
stance.  There  were  certain  things  of  which  he  had  learned 
the  value  too  soon.  Ease  of  manner  in  a  situation  requiring 
delicacy  might  be  one  of  these.  For  one  so  young  he  must 
have  been  in  a  good  many  situations  requiring  delicacy, 
and  his  enforced  knowledge  of  how  to  treat  them  had  worn 
him  a  little  fine.  Between  his  restless  terrier's  eyes  there 
was  a  line  which  might  have  been  of  pain.  His  hammered 
bronze  profile  was  an  even  more  intricate  piece  of  work 
manship  than  it  had  been  on  that  sunlit  morning  a  year  and 
a  half  ago  when  he  had  stood  on  the  deck  of  the  Ballerina, 
his  elbows  resting  on  the  rail,  his  head  in  his  hands.  But 
to  one  who  had  seen  him  then,  and  saw  him  now  again  for 
the  second  time,  the  increased  intricacy  of  his  profile 
wouldn't  make  up  for  its  increased  whiteness.  He  had  a 
look  of  having  been  broken  upon  a  wheel  which  he  then 
quite  lacked. 

To  Emily,  who  had  never  seen  him  before  the  other  day 
at  the  theatre,  and  who  therefore  came  at  him  quite  fresh, 
as  it  were,  he  seemed  merely  a  rather  pale  young  man  of  a 
type  she  knew  very  little  about.  In  fact,  she  wondered 
why  his  family  —  not  to  mention  the  Princess  Karina  — 


ANTICLIMAXES  95 

should  be  looming  so  large  on  her  horizon.  She  supposed 
that  was  the  price  paid  for  celebrity  —  if  people  were  suffi 
ciently  insistent,  it  was  hard  to  avoid  them;  and  of  course 
the  celebrity  was  just  what  made  them  insistent.  Of  this 
new  group  it  was  the  Princess  Karina  who  most  dogged  her 
footsteps.  Emily  found  herself  better  known  in  Europe 
than  she  had  supposed;  the  princess  told  of  a  cruise  made 
bearable  by  her  book. 

"You  must  have  had  a  stupid  time!"  Emily's  French 
was  shockingly  bad. 

"Indeed,  no  —  without  'The  Cuckoo,'  who  can  say? 
But  with  it—  " 

"  I  thought  that  the  albatross  was  the  usual  accompanier 
of  voyages." 

There  was  a  laugh  from  David. 

The  authoress  turned  to  him.  "What  difference  does  it 
make  —  what  bird  ?  " 

"As  long  as  it  is  a  bird  of  good  omen?    None." 

They  were  all  together  at  one  end  of  the  big  room,  —  David, 
Emily,  the  princess,  and  John  Barlow.  The  princess  had 
lately  joined  these  latter  three,  leaving  Ralph  Parrish  alone 
with  his  hostess.  The  rest  of  the  dinner  guests  had  gone, 
and  something  in  the  expression  of  Parrish's  back  told 
Emily  that  he  was  waiting  for  her  to  do  the  same.  Not 
that  her  going  really  concerned  him,  for  this  wasn't  one  of 
the  houses  from  which  he  could  himself  see  her  home. 
That  was  only  done  in  the  case  of  mutually  intimate  friends 
who  would  be  sure  not  to  think  it  queer,  and  the  Barlows 
were  but  the  most  casual  acquaintances  —  David  a  friend 
of  the  princess  and  the  princess  a  friend  of  the  Rostovs, 
Monsieur  and  Madame,  whom  Ralph  Parrish  had  known  in 


96  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

Russia.  Emily  wasn't  sure  but  that  she  was  a  little  jeal 
ous  of  the  princess;  she  represented  a  page  in  her  cousin's 
life  of  which  she  herself  hadn't  had  the  turning.  Her  sense 
of  possession  was  disturbed.  Yet  she  knew  that  there  must 
be  many  such  pages;  a  pale  little  literary  lady  couldn't 
expect  to  have  the  whole  of  a  big  man  like  Parrish  in  her 
keeping. 

She  looked  at  him  now.  He  was  being  bored.  But  it 
was  a  condition  only  obvious  to  one  who  knew  him  well; 
he  always  had  beautiful  manners,  and  he  was  giving  to  his 
hostess  what  seemed  to  be  his  closest  attention.  Mrs. 
Barlow,  in  her  turn,  was  apparently  giving  him  hers. 
There  was  a  positiveness  in  all  she  did  —  a  positiveness  and 
a  quality  of  triumph.  It  was  as  if  the  fact  of  her  having 
married  John  Barlow  and  living  to  tell  the  tale  was  in  itself 
a  matter  for  congratulation  —  "I  married  him  and  I  kept 
his  house,  and  I  even  presented  him  with  a  son,  and  here 
I  am!  "  That  was  her  attitude.  She  was  small  and 
sharp,  and,  to  those  who  could  forgive  these  attributes, 
handsome.  The  princess  immediately  called  her  La  Petite 
Caporalle.  It  was  true  she  sat  her  chair  as  a  soldier  sits 
his  horse  —  though  without  straddling. 

How,  indeed,  could  the  son  of  such  a  pair  fail  to  be  an 
anticlimax  ? 

II 

The  Barlows,  led  by  John,  frankly  added  themselves  to 
the  list  of  Miss  Stedman's  admirers.  The  little  poets  and 
the  little  scribblers  had  to  make  way;  Mrs.  Mellish  found 
her  lion  roaring  at  another  board;  Ralph  Parrish  was  in 
the  awkward  predicament  of  a  man  whose  rival  occupies  the 


ANTICLIMAXES  97 

impregnable  fortress  given  by  years  and  an  aiding  and 
abetting  family. 

It  was  one  of  those  times  for  which  Parrish  seemed 
destined  when  there  was  nothing  to  be  done.  He  again 
waited.  It  occurred  to  him  during  the  leisure  thus  engen 
dered  that  his  intimacy  with  his  cousin  depended  rather 
appallingly  on  chance.  On  that  epoch-making  occasion 
when  they  had  gone  together  to  the  theatre,  they  were 
nearer  to  what  would  have  been  his  ideal  of  the  situation 
than  ever  before.  There  had  been  a  moment  between  them, 
—  Parrish  remembered  it  without  being  able  quite  to  place 
it,  —  but  a  moment  with  no  sequence.  He  had  a  tendency 
to  swear  at  the  Princess  Karina.  She  had  cut  the  thread. 
He  found  himself  flooded  with  memories  against  which 
Emily  didn't  hold  her  own;  but  then  when  you  came  to 
that,  who  else  was  there,  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  who 
could?  The  flooding  memories  were  conquerable.  To 
turn  out  the  intruding  Barlows  required  some  definite  ac 
tion,  and  with  that  he  didn't  know  for  what  he  might  let 
himself  in. 

The  Barlows  had  no  such  dread.  John  Barlow's  fortress 
was  impregnable.  He  always  had  a  fondness  for  the  small 
and  sharp  in  women;  and  the  small  and  sharp  combined 
with  a  bewildering  elaboration  of  wit  and  charm  and  deli 
cacy! —  his  only  regret  was  that  Miss  Stedman  was  too 
old  for  his  son.  And  even  if  she  hadn't  been,  he  understood 
that  she  was  already  bespoken.  "When  you  and  Mr. 
Parrish  marry  — "  He  brought  it  out  when  she  was  again 
dining  at  his  house. 

"  Believe  me,  Mr.  Parrish  and  I  will  never  marry  —  " 

"Each  other  or  somebody  else?" 


98  OTHER  PEOPLES   HOUSES 

"Each  other,  I  meant.  Of  course,  I  can't  answer  for 
what  Mr.  Parrish  may  do  in  regard  to  somebody  else." 

"But  you  can  answer  for  yourself?" 

"Oh,  quite!" 

Barlow  smiled.    "You're  wedded  to  your  art?" 

"Not  in  the  least!" 

The  denial  was  at  once  so  firm  and  so  gay  that  Emily 
Stedman's  admirer  was  moved  to  ask  another  question, 
"Then  what  are  you  wedded  to?" 

It  was  a  question  which  Emily  waived.  "  I  would  be  such 
an  appropriate  subject  for  matrimony,"  she  said  at  last. 

For  a  moment  Mr.  Barlow  trembled  for  the  sanctity  of 
his  dinner-table.  He  had  heard  that  Miss  Stedman's 
conversation  was  not  at  all  guaranteed,  and  what  could 
one  expect  with  "The  Cuckoo"  ever  ready  to  announce  the 
ringing  hour  ?  —  but,  nevertheless,  he  felt  that  in  pursuing 
the  subject  further  he  was  taking  his  life  in  his  hands. 
"  You  mean  ?  —  "  He  paused. 

"I  mean  just  what  I  say.  Imagine  me  as  anything  but 
Emily  Stedman!" 

"Would  marriage  so  change  you?" 

"Why,  it  might  even  kill  me.  " 

"Anything  that  killed  you  we  could  never  forgive." 

"But  fancy  what  a  success  I'll  be  in  heaven." 

"If  marriage  is  your  road  to  heaven,  my  dear  lady,  by 
all  means  take  it."  Barlow  again  felt  the  ground  under 
his  feet.  "Take  it,"  he  repeated,  "take  it  — " 

"You  advise  me  to  die  for  love?  Oh,  I  may  die  without 
that.  But  I  suppose  your  idea  is  that  as  long  as  I  must 
die  anyway,  I  may  as  well  do  so  for  something  worth  while. 
People  don't,  you  know,  die  for  things  worth  while.  In 


ANTICLIMAXES  99 

heaven  it  must  be  the  things  one  hasn't  done  that  one 
regrets  —  not  those  one's  done." 

"I  thought  that  in  heaven  one  didn't  regret." 

"Oh,  surely  !    For  in  hell  there  can't  be  time  — " 

"Hell's  busier.    I  see." 

"I  like  the  way  you  accept  my  authority !  What  do  I 
know  about  it?"  She  turned  to  her  other  neighbor,  and 
Barlow  heard  her  address  him  with  the  note  of  gayety  still 
forced  high.  "Tell  me,  don't  you  think  it  queer,  Mr. 
Barlow's  acceptance  of  my  authority  about  heaven  and 
hell?  " 

As  he  still  looked  at  her,  —  her  bedecked  though  exposed 
little  back  so  oddly  surmounted  by  the  turned  profile  of 
her  eager  white  face,  —  John  Barlow's  admiration  was 
suddenly  completed  by  a  sense  of  pity,  —  a  sense  which  was 
not  made  less  by  either  Miss  Stedman's  gayety,  her  celebrity, 
or  her  tangible,  enviable  success.  He  felt  sorry  for  her 
much  as  he  might  feel  sorry  for  a  waif  who  sold  apples  at  a 
street  corner. 

From  one  point  of  view  he  was  right.  Emily  Stedman 
was  undeniably  a  sister  of  the  waif  who  sold  the  apples; 
but  the  relationship  —  and  here  it  was  that  he  was  wrong 
—  the  relationship  was  not  one  to  excite  pity.  His  guest 
had  herself  claimed  it, — brought  it  upon  herself, — and  with 
herself  to  thank,  pity  was  unjust.  Waif  hood  is  the  con 
dition  preferred  of  the  egotist,  and  Emily  Stedman  was 
an  egotist  before  she  was  anything  else.  To  her,  waif  hood 
was  a  synonym  for  independence ;  she  was  stray,  but  she  was 
ownerless.  She  was  free  to  go  and  to  come  —  her  freedom 
was  only  bounded  by  her  opportunity.  And  her  oppor 
tunity —  what  was  that?  As  the  boundary  of  so  much 


100  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

freedom  it  seemed,  in  one  direction  at  least,  to  be  even 
more  of  an  anticlimax  than  little  David  Barlow,  as  the  son 
of  his  parents,  couldn't  fail  to  be.  It  seemed  to  be  Ralph 
Fairish. 

Parrish  wasn't  at  this  second  dinner  of  the  Barlows. 
He  wasn't  always  asked  with  his  cousin.  There  was  no 
real  reason  why  he  should  be  —  why,  for  that  matter, 
any  one  should  be.  It  was  one  of  the  causes  of  her  success 
as  a  celebrity  that  Miss  Stedman  was  wonderfully  un 
attached.  At  this  second  dinner  of  the  Barlows  she  was 
quite  among  strangers.  There  was  not  one  in  all  that 
parallelogram  of  faces  which  a  few  weeks  ago  she  had  ever 
seen.  She  wished  that  Parrish  always  would  be  asked  with 
her.  No  matter  how  great  a  length  of  table  lay  between 
them,  —  and  it  usually  managed  to  be  considerable,  —  the 
sight  of  him  and  the  sense  of  his  presence  gave  her  less  a 
feeling  of  lightheadedness.  Lightheadedness  was  the  dis 
advantage  of  complete  waifhood,  and  it  occasionally  verged 
on  dizziness.  Her  lightheadedness  was  all  to  do  with  her  un- 
attachment  —  wouldn't  an  only  sailor  in  a  small  boat  in 
mid-ocean  have  occasional  moments  of  it  ?  But  the  glory 
to  the  egotist  of  a  lonely  communion  with  the  open  sea ! 
Yet  the  sailor's  egotism,  if  it  led  him  to  refuse  aid  from  a 
passing  steamer,  would  be  called  insanity. 

As  Emily  looked  about  her,  she  felt  like  an  actor  in  a 
company  of  travelling  players  who  finds  himself  alone  upon 
the  stage  facing  a  new  audience  in  a  new  town.  With  her 
freedom  and  her  loneliness  and  her  new  audience  who 
didn't  know  the  play,  there  were  wonderful  possibilities  of 
opportunity.  And  her  freedom  was  bounded  only  by  that. 

When  she  left,  David  Barlow  himself  saw  her  into  her  cab. 


ANTICLIMAXES  101 

"David,  see  that  Miss  Stedman  gets  off  safely — "  His 
father  had  said  it  to  him,  and  his  acquiescence  was  drowned 
in  Miss  Stedman's  laughter.  "Speed  the  parting  guest !  — 
I  should  think  you  would  want  to  get  me  off  safely;  it's 
after  eleven  o'clock.  If  this  habit  of  lateness  grows  on  me, 
the  next  time  I  come,  I'll  have  to  bring  my  bag  and  stay. 
Of  course,  we  were  having  a  lovely  talk,  and  that  may  be 
some  excuse,  but  nevertheless — " 

"What  is  the  conventional  hour  for  departure?"  David 
asked  of  her  as  together  they  came  down  the  broad  stairs 
which  led  to  the  hall  door.  The  Barlows'  was  the  newer 
type  of  house  with  the  hall  door  on  a  level  with  the  street 
and  the  parlors  above. 

"After  dinner  —  the  conventional  hour?  I'm  sure  I 
don't  know.  When  the  first  woman  leaves,  I  suppose." 

"It's  snowing!" 

Emily  didn't  have  to  be  told.  She  felt  it  in  the  first  soft, 
cool  breath  that  came  in  through  the  opened  bronze  door. 

"In  the  country  there'll  be  sleighing." 

"Don't  speak  of  sleighing  —  I  hate  it.  Miles  and  miles 
of  bleakness  and  black  trees  against  the  snow  —  and  cold, 
and  the  constant  tinkle  of  bells  —  Here,  where  there  is 
no  sleighing  and  no  great  frozen  spaces,  and  the  good  gray 
pavement  shows  through  the  whiteness,  or  at  most  you  can 
scrape  the  whiteness  away  with  an  inquiring  foot  —  here, 
with  the  smothered  sound  of  wheels  and  horses'  hoofs  — " 

David  interrupted  her.     "And  automobiles  !" 

"Yes,  and  automobiles — " 

"You  like  it  better?" 

"Much,  much  better."  She  stood  with  David  watching 
the  cabman  come  to  life  under  the  spell  of  the  butler's 


102  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

whistle.  He  had  been  sitting  on  his  box  with  the  droop 
peculiar  to  his  kind  —  a  droop  expressive  of  utter  hope 
lessness,  in  a  slough  of  despond  so  low  that  the  falling  snow 
couldn't  possibly  reach  him.  The  butler's  whistle  had  a 
magical  effect.  He  became,  immediately,  an  able  member 
of  society.  "You  know  I  oughtn't  to  keep  you  here,  bare 
headed  and  with  no  coat  — " 

"Why  not?" 

"You'll  catch  cold.  You  must  remember  this  isn't  the 
Mediterranean!" 

"Indeed,  no." 

The  butler's  hand  was  on  the  handle  of  the  cab  door. 
He  inwardly  agreed  with  Miss  Stedman  that  a  hatless  and 
coatless  condition  was  dangerous.  But  that  lady  didn't 
seem  to  practise  what  she  preached.  She  stopped  halfway 
to  the  cab:  "You  won't  go  back  there?" 

"There?" 

"To  the  Mediterranean." 

David  laughed.     "  I'll  try  not  to !" 

His  adviser's  reply  was  still  more  merry.  "Of  course, 
what  you  can't  guard  against  is  having  the  Mediterranean 
come  to  you." 

"Mohammed?" 

"Exactly." 

"But  I'm  not  a  mountain." 

"Indeed  you're  not!  — Ah,  I  really  mustn't  keep  you 
here." 

With  John  Barlow's  admiration  for  Emily,  pity  was  the 
completing  note  —  the  note  that  made  the  admiration 
perfect.  Pity  was  merely  the  beginning  of  Emily's  ad 
miration  for  his  son.  It  came  over  her,  this  sense  of  pity, 


ANTICLIMAXES  103 

and  without  the  slightest  apparent  cause  —  or  at  least  his 
momentary  exposure  to  the  elements  was  an  insufficient 
one.  As  she  stood  there  in  the  white  soft  night,  she  was 
suddenly  conscious  of  an  instinct  which  she  had  thought 
herself  without  —  in  fact,  she  had  rather  prided  herself 
upon  being,  in  this  particular,  the  exception  of  her  sex. 
It  wasn't  love.  She  already  knew  something  of  that,  and 
this  was  quite  strange  to  her.  It  was  an  instinct  fatal  to 
the  egotist  —  the  instinct  a  mother  has  for  her  child.  It 
was  only  very  slightly  that  it  stirred  within  her;  she  was 
aware  of  it  most  through  the  causelessness  of  her  sense 
of  pity. 

She  turned  and  got  into  her  cab.     "Good  night !" 
"Good  night !    Does  he  know  where  to  go?" 
Emily  repeated  the  address  in  the  late  thirties.    Through 
the  medium  of  David  and  the  butler  it  finally  reached  him 
to  whom  it  would  most  do  good.    The  effect  given  was 
that  of  a  secret  countersign  being  passed  from  mouth  to 
mouth. 

"Well,  for  the  last  time,  good  night."  Emily  smiled, 
and  leaning  forward  met  with  her  own  her  young  host's 
extended  hand. 

There  he  stood,  slim  and  straight.  He  was  like  a  curious 
ghostly  etching,  sharply  black  and  white  save  for  a  faint 
compromise  of  gray  where  the  snow  had  settled  on  his 
shoulders.  In  the  dim  light  his  hair  showed  for  black,  and 
black,  also,  were  his  clothes,  his  line  of  white  starting  with 
his  waistcoat  and  the  front  of  his  shirt.  Emily,  her  white- 
wrapped  figure  outlined  against  the  interior  darkness  of  the 
carriage,  was  almost  as  colorless  as  he.  They  might  have 
been  two  modern  spirits  of  the  storm,  bora  of  it  and  gone 


104  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

with  its  passing,  as  ghosts  are  born  of  the  midnight  hour  and 
go  with  the  crowing  of  the  cock. 

in 

"Heyeh,  Miss  Stedman,  I  got  something  foh  you!" 
The  elevator  boy  at  the  address  in  the  late  thirties  brought 
forth  from  his  pocket  a  rather  crumpled  piece  of  paper. 
"The  other  boy  —  he  went  off  duty  at  half-past  ten,  and 
he  said  I'se  to  be  sure  to  give  it  to  you  right  smaht  when  you 
come  in  —  and  see !  I  don't  forget  to  do  it  — "  There  was 
a  gleam  of  teeth  in  the  black  face. 

.  Emily  unfolded  the  paper,  which  was  unnecessarily  large 
for  the  message  it  contained :  "  '  Mr.  Parrish  called  up  at 
nine  and  again  at  ten.'  He  telephoned?" 

"  Yas'm,  he  telephoned." 

"Did  he  leave  any  message?" 

"I  don't  know,  m'm.  Sam  —  he  wrote  what's  theh,  and 
he  went  off  at  ten-thirty.  He  said  I'se  to  be  sure  to  give 
it  to  you  and — " 

"  Yes,  you  did.  I'll  remember  to  thank  you.  How  late 
do  you  stay  on?" 

"One  o'clock." 

The  latter  part  of  this  conversation  had  taken  place  in 
the  elevator,  which  had  now  reached  the  ninth  floor.  The 
negro  paused,  however,  before  he  drew  back  the  iron  gate. 
"Is  theh  anything  I  can  do  foh  you,  Miss  Stedman,  befoh  I 
go?  I'd  be  real  pleased  —  anything."  He  presented  to 
her  a  mind  as  open  as  his  countenance,  but  Miss  Stedman 
said  no. 

"No,"  she  repeated  as  she  stepped  out  of  the  elevator, 
her  latch-key  ready  in  her  hand. 


ANTICLIMAXES  105 

She  found  her  apartment  cold.  The  beruffled  little 
maid  had  gone  out,  leaving  the  steam  turned  off.  The 
beruffled  little  maid  was  a  snare  and  a  delusion,  besides 
staying  out  far  too  late.  As  she  knelt  down  to  arrange  the 
steam,  Emily  promised  herself  that  she  would  speak  to  her 
in  the  morning;  and  in  the  morning  she  would  telephone 
Ralph.  Twice  —  at  nine  and  again  at  ten  —  she  won 
dered.  But  now  the  important  thing  was  to  get  warm 
and  to  get  to  bed.  She  had  that  subtler  form  of  the  in 
stinct  of  self-preservation  which  is  given  to  the  invalid; 
she  knew  the  exact  line  of  fatigue  not  to  overstep,  and  to 
night  she  had  almost  reached  it.  Her  lightheadedness 
gave  a  hint  of  becoming  a  physical  fact.  She  looked  for 
ward  to  the  morning ;  the  morning  was  the  time  of  strength 
and  rested  nerves.  But  there  were  many  things  to  do  be 
fore  that.  She  seemed  to  be  wearing  a  million  garments 
and  to  take  from  her  hair  endless  hair-pins.  The  presence 
of  the  beruffled  maid  would  have  simplified  the  unfastening 
of  her  dress. 

Half  her  consciousness  was  occupied  with  these  minor 
difficulties,  the  other  half  with  the  information  so  faithfully 
conveyed  by  the  elevator  boy.  She  reread  the  rough, 
pencilled  scrawl.  Twice  —  at  nine  and  again  at  ten. 
Once,  she  could  have  understood.  She  had  thrust  the  thing 
into  her  mirror  between  the  frame  and  the  glass ;  and  there 
it  faced  her,  an  object  seemingly  incongruous.  The  scrap 
basket  gaped  for  it.  And  after  all,  why  shouldn't  Parrish 
have  called  her  up  twice  ?  He  probably  wanted  to  see  her 
—  the  state  of  mind  was  not  unprecedented. 

At  last  she  was  divested  of  the  million  garments.  The 
process  left  the  room  disordered,  or  would  have  done  so  if 


106  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

the  garments  in  question  hadn't  been  so  small  and  so  orna 
mental.  The  floor  —  the  chairs  —  the  pretty  white  bed 
—  were  dotted  and  strewn  with  them,  from  the  long  white 
glove  —  its  expressive  empty  fingers  spread  wide  —  to  the 
slipper  which  lay  in  the  middle  of  the  rug  kicking  defiance 
at  its  mate.  It  was  of  satin  and  had  a  suggestion  almost 
bridal.  Emily  remembered  the  cake  of  which  Ralph 
Fairish  had  liked  the  flavor  but  not  the  implication.  His 
admiration  of  her  slipper  would  probably  have  a  similar 
reservation  —  abstractly,  as  a  slipper,  even  not  abstractly, 
as  her  slipper,  he  would  like  it  immensely ;  but  as  a  wedding 
slipper  —  no.  Why,  Ralph  Parrish  could  have  crushed  it 
in  his  hand,  breaking  the  thin  sole  backwards  and  wrenching 
away  the  heel !  The  vivid  vision  of  him  suddenly  filled 
his  cousin's  eyes  and  was  the  instinctive  cause  of  her  sudden 
putting  on  of  a  garment  as  elaborate  as  any  which  she  had 
taken  off. 

The  steam  was  making  strange  sputtering  noises  in  the 
pipes.  Emily  felt  the  warming  iron.  It  seemed  to  take 
so  long ;  by  the  time  the  room  was  really  fit,  she  would  be 
in  bed  with  the  blankets  up  about  her  ears.  She  opened 
the  door  into  the  parlor.  That  was  better,  and  stepping 
across  the  coldly  polished  floor  she  went  to  the  windows 
to  draw  the  curtains  closer.  Outside  was  a  world  of  faintly 
moving  white  —  a  motion  of  flakes  not  unlike  the  vibrating 
background  of  a  cinematograph.  Far  below  came  the 
muffled  clang  of  an  electric  car.  She  arranged  the  curtains 
and  stepped  back  into  the  room.  She  was  in  that  first 
stage  of  the  approach  of  sleep  when  sounds  jog  the  senses. 
She  was  usually  rather  nocturnal  of  habit,  but  to-night  bed 
was  her  goal,  and,  being  so,  it  was  queer  she  didn't  reach  it 


ANTICLIMAXES  107 

sooner.  At  the  moment  her  power  to  reach  anything  was 
slight.  Her  fatigue  had  got  beyond  her  desire  for  rest. 
If  rest  meant  exertion  before  it  could  be  attained,  it  was 
hardly  worth  while,  and  she  felt  that  there  were  so  many 
things  yet  to  do.  She  drew  the  folds  of  her  elaborate  gar 
ment  more  closely  about  her ;  it  was  a  creation  of  Oriental 
splendor,  red,  with  an  intricate  and  contrasting  embroidery. 
The  noise  of  the  steam  had  changed  to  a  dull,  spasmodic 
pounding;  it  would  have  been  better,  she  thought,  never 
to  have  turned  it  on.  It  would  have  been  better  —  her 
attention  wandered ;  she  was  trying  to  remember  some  of 
the  many  things  between  her  and  rest.  She  started  at  the 
rattle  of  a  key  in  the  door. 

It  was  the  beruffled  maid  returning.  The  maid  was  kind, 
and  gave  her  a  hot  drink  and  put  her  to  bed. 

She  slept  heavily  and  awoke  in  the  looked-for  morning 
with  the  strong  sense  upon  her  of  having  missed  while 
sleeping  the  thing  which  had  made  the  morning  looked 
for.  The  morning  was  the  time  of  strength  and  rested 
nerves.  She  was  rested  to  the  point  of  dulness,  and  as  for 
strength — lying  in  bed  she  was  hardly  in  a  position  to  tell. 
But  there  had  been  something  else  which  the  morning  was 
to  have  brought  forth;  she  was  too  fresh  from  sleep  to 
name  it;  she  felt  —  only  —  that  it  was  this  which  had 
escaped  her. 

She  lay  there,  very  still,  and  it  was  presently  borne  in  upon 
her  awakening  senses  that  the  million  garments  of  the  night 
before  were  nowhere  to  be  seen.  The  beruffled  maid  must 
have  put  them  away.  It  was  her  first  hint  of  the  lateness 
of  the  hour,  and  looking  at  her  watch  she  found  it  nearly 
noon.  The  maid  heard  her  stirring  and  came  in  with  break- 


108  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

fast.  It  was  decided  not  to  speak  to  her  about  her  being 
out  at  night. 

"Ah,  you  did  sleep ! "  She  was  of  French  origin  and  pro 
nounced  it '  slip.'  "  You  did  slip !  But  then  you  were  tired. 
Mr.  Parrish  telephoned  this  morning  very  early,  but  I 
would  not  disturb  you,  so  I  said  to  him  that  you  were  out. 
He  was  surprised." 

"I  don't  wonder.  He  telephoned  last  night  —  twice. 
He  left  no  message?" 

A  comment  was  ventured.    "He  is  very  constant." 

The  comment  was  ignored.  "I  can't  help  feeling  that 
this  is  a  holiday  —  Sunday  or  Christmas  or  New  Year's  — " 

"The  snow  makes  it  so  still."  The  expressive  French 
shoulders  shivered. 

"You  don't  like  it  still?" 

"Not  like  this."  She  looked  towards  the  window.  "And 
the  snow  has  not  yet  stopped." 

"Yes,  it's  a  real  blizzard,"  said  Emily,  and  then  irrele 
vantly,  "  With  breakfast  so  late  I  shan't  require  lunch. 
I  mustn't  forget  to  telephone  Mr.  Parrish,"  she  continued 
half  to  herself.  Her  eyes  had  fallen  on  the  conspicuously 
placed  paper.  But  she  didn't  telephone  him  for  some  hours. 
She  dressed  and  settled  herself  to  a  long  afternoon  of  work. 

It  was  one  of  the  unwritten  laws  of  the  cousins'  intimacy 
with  each  other  that  he  should  always  come  to  her  unasked. 
It  was  a  pleasant  fiction  between  them  that  he  was  the  busy 
one,  of  many  occupations  and  engagements ;  and  that  any 
moments  which  he  could  spare  from  these  would  anyway  be 
devoted  to  her,  and  when  he  couldn't  come,  he  couldn't 
—  so  asking  was  superfluous.  The  idea  had  its  root  in 
the  past,  and  Emily's  celebrity  left  it  untouched.  He 


ANTICLIMAXES  109 

continued  to  come  whenever  he  could;  sometimes  she 
couldn't  see  him  —  witness  his  late  failure  at  the  tele 
phone.  Her  imagination  played  about  this  evidence  of 
constancy.  His  constancy  didn't  usually  show  itself  in 
just  that  way;  he  was  anything  but  craven.  Emily's  im 
pulse  was  to  find  out  what  it  was  all  about,  but  she  had 
a  sort  of  passive  self-control  which  checked  it,  a  respect 
for  the  old  unwritten  law.  Yet  what  was  any  law,  written 
or  unwritten,  if  her  preoccupation  with  it  interfered  with 
"Mrs.  Dallowfield"? 

It  was  on  occasions  such  as  these,  when  her  preoccupation 
rose  above  her  will,  and  her  ability  to  create  was  blocked  and 
befogged,  that  Emily  Stedman  doubted  her  own  talent  — 
her  own  fitness  for  her  task.  Her  task  was  self-imposed, 
and  at  the  present  consisted  of  bringing  "Mrs.  Dallowfield" 
to  life.  "Mrs.  Dallowfield,"  in  her  mortal  dress  of  yellow 
paper  traced  by  ink,  was  as  real  to  her  and  as  vivid  as  an 
actual  physical  presence.  She  had  believed  in  her,  and 
from  this  belief  she  found  it  impossible  to  separate  her  be 
lief  in  herself.  Now  these  two  beliefs  seemed  tottering,  and 
she  faced  the  supreme  horror  to  the  egotist.  She  should 
have  had  for  "  Mrs.  Dallowfield"  a  concentration  of  atten 
tion  that  was  nearly  pain,  and  instead  she  was  occupied 
with  the  scotching  of  a  harmless  impulse.  And  there  had 
been  times  when  she  had  deludedly  thought  her  fitness 
for  her  task  bordered  genius.  Her  self-control  suddenly 
wavered  and  broke.  If  the  impulse  was  so  harmless — and 
what  was  it,  after  all,  but  the  very  human  desire  to  satisfy 
her  curiosity  ?  —  if  the  impulse  was  so  harmless,  why  not 
obey  it  and  have  done  with  it?  Ralph  Parrish  desired  to 
speak  with  her  —  she,  equally,  desired  to  speak  with  him. 


110  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

The  simple  impulse  was  as  incongruous  with  the  fuss  made 
about  it  as.  the  rough,  pencilled  scrawl  of  the  elevator  boy 
was  incongruous  with  its  position  between  the  gilded  frame 
and  polished  glass  of  her  mirror.  She  went  into  her  room 
and  got  it.  She  no  longer  required  the  reminder. 

The  young  woman  whom  Parrish's  firm  of  wholesale  fur 
dealers  employed  as  a  telephone  girl  was  rather  more  in 
telligent  than  the  usual  run  of  young  women  so  employed. 
She  told  Emily  that  Mr.  Parrish  was  out ;  in  fact,  she  thought 
he  was  away,  and  further  than  that,  she  didn't  know.  He 
hadn't  been  at  the  office  that  day,  or  if  he  had,  she  hadn't 
seen  him.  His  inquiring  cousin  was  persistent  and  evinced 
a  tendency  to  argue.  A  person  in  authority  was  called. 
Emily  explained  her  relationship  —  another  impulse,  less 
simple.  Mr.  Parrish  ?  —  Mr.  Parrish  had  been  called  away, 
most  unexpectedly.  In  fact,  it  was  hardly  that ;  for  the 
exigencies  of  their  business  required  the  presence,  on  the 
other  side,  of  a  member  of  the  firm,  and  Mr.  Parrish  had 
offered  to  go.  He  had  left  in  great  haste,  sailing  that 
morning.  His  cousin  would  doubtless  hear  from  him. 
She  politely  was  sorry  to  have  troubled  them.  The  trouble 
was  nothing. 

She  came  back  to  the  big  writing-table,  from  whose  well- 
blottered  top  "Mrs.  Dallowfield"  gazed  drearily  up  at  her. 
She  noticed  that  the  vibrating  whiteness  still  continued 
outside  the  window ;  she  saw  a  spot  of  ink  on  the  cover  of 
the  dictionary;  and  the  exact  tone  of  the  wall-paper  —  a 
pinkish  yellow  with  a  slightly  darker  stripe  —  was  suddenly 
very  clear  to  her.  The  chairs,  the  sofa,  the  little  glass  case 
—  all  the  objects  with  which  she  had  grown  familiar  — 
clamored  for  her  attention  as  loudly  as  though  they  were 


ANTICLIMAXES  111 

fresh  from  the  dealer's ;  the  whole  expression  of  the  room, 
for  once  bare  and  bleak,  forced  itself  upon  her  regard.  The 
veil  which  is  usually  interposed  between  objects  and  a 
consciousness  of  them,  the  better  to  safeguard  the  occupied 
brain  against  intruding  perceptions,  seemed  to  be  torn  away. 

Emily  stood  before  the  big  table.  Her  hands  were  em 
ployed  in  smoothing  out  the  bit  of  crumpled  paper  that  she 
had  so  oddly  taken  with  her  to  the  telephone.  She  looked 
at  it  dully ;  her  perceptions  were  paying  for  their  period  of 
activity.  Her  perceptions  —  of  what  use  were  they  now  ? 
It  was  as  if  a  great,  opaque  sheet,  a  thousand  times  thicker 
than  any  veil,  were  drawn  down  in  front  of  her.  She  had 
to  feel  for  her  chair,  and  having  attained  it  she  leaned  for 
ward  until  her  cheek  rested  on  the  smooth,  gay  paper  which 
was  "Mrs.  Dallowfield's "  abode.  It  was  not  to  "Mrs.  Dal- 
lowfield,"  however,  that  her  cry  went  out  —  a  cry  so  shrill 
and  so  strangely  sharp  that  the  beraffled  maid  came  running. 

"  Oh  —  my  own  —  my  love !  — " 


CHAPTER  VI 

JANE 


JANE  BENCH  was  sent  by  her  mother  to  look  for  a  gold 
bracelet  which  that  lady  thought  she  had  left,  the  night 
before,  on  the  table  in  the  smaller  salon.  The  Benches 
were  occupying  an  apartment  belonging  to  some  friends 
who  didn't  care  for  Paris  in  January.  They  were  able  to 
gratify  their  whims,  and  they  let  their  really  gorgeous  place 
at  a  rental  merely  nominal ;  and  Mrs.  Bench,  with  her  keen 
Western  eye  for  a  bargain,  had  sealed  the  transaction  then 
and  there  with  a  check  for  half  the  amount.  It  was  her  con 
stant  effort  to  make  her  checks  rare,  but  this  one  surely 
brought  large  returns.  Even  Jane  agreed  to  that,  and  Jane 
was  not  given  to  agreement.  Her  mother's  check  would 
have  brought  larger  returns  for  Jane,  however,  if  she  had 
been  allowed  to  make  use  of  the  charming  sitting-room 
with  which  the  new  splendor  of  their  space  provided  her. 
She  did,  of  course,  use  it;  but  just  when  she  would  have 
liked  to  most,  —  when  the  smaller  salon  was  dotted  with  a 
polyglot  collection,  princes  of  the  realm,  rich  Americans, 
expatriated  Russians,  —  just  then  was  when  she  was 
turned  from  her  sanctuary  neck  and  crop,  and  made  to  shed 
the  light  of  her  angel  presence  over  the  assembled  company. 
Last  night  had  been  a  case  in  point. 

112 


JANE  113 

The  vivid  memory  of  it  struck  her  full  in  the  face  as  she 
opened  the  door  of  the  smaller  salon.  She  had  sat  there,  — 
the  chair  upon  which  she  had  sat  was  still  by  the  pink  shaded 
lamp  in  the  farther  corner,  —  she  had  sat  there,  among  her 
mother's  friends,  her  grave  gaze  bent  upon  her  embroidery. 
Her  mother  considered  her  the  most  perfect  specimen  of  the 
jeune  fille  in  France;  she  openly  referred  to  her  as  her 
greatest  triumph  —  "My  greatest  triumph,  and  it's  part  of 
her  perfection  that  she  wishes  to  blush  unseen  —  but  I 
don't  allow  that !"  —  Bits  of  idle  talk  seemed  still  to  fill 
the  air  along  with  the  stale  tobacco  smoke.  Chairs  other 
than  Jane's  were  drawn  out  of  their  accustomed  places.  A 
tray  with  glasses  hadn't  been  removed.  If  ever  a  room  were 
haunted  by  the  ghosts  of  the  departed,  it  was  the  smaller 
salon  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Jane  found  the  gold 
bracelet  and  fled. 

Mrs.  Dench  was  having  breakfast.  As  her  daughter  came 
in  to  her,  she  was  in  the  very  act  of  covering  a  poached  egg 
generously  with  salt.  She  then  inserted  a  knife  into  its 
midst  and  watched  the  spreading  of  the  yellow  yolk  with 
almost  the  same  intentness  with  which  a  surgeon  would 
watch  the  effect  of  an  operation.  Dressed  as  she  was,  tai 
lored  and  stiff,  in  fresh  linen  and  well-pressed  cloth,  which 
in  spite  of  its  simplicity^  had  an  air  of  experience  in  dressing, 
she  might  tempt  one  to  carry  the  comparison  of  the  surgeon 
further.  She  had  the  unscrupulous  quality  that  great 
doctors  are  said  to  possess  and  a  delicate  use  of  her  rather 
heavy  and  masculine  hands.  The  very  sensitive  observer 
might  be  forgiven  a  slight  shudder  even  at  her  method  of 
-dealing  with  the  bladder-like  surface  of  her  egg.  She  didn't 
at  all  suggest  the  pampered  mistress  of  a  gilded  salon  —  the 


114  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

idol  before  whom  princes  of  the  realm  and  rich  Americans 
sent  up  their  incense  in  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke.  One  sus 
pected  her  of  a  knowledge  of  tobacco  smoke  which  went 
deeper  than  that.  If  there  were  any  liberties  to  be  taken  in 
her  gilded  salon,  she  would  be  the  one  to  take  them  —  she 
would  be  the  one  to  tilt  back  her  chair  and  relax  her  soul 
from  the  stress  of  the  day's  work.  And,  for  her,  one  perhaps 
saw  as  a  background  for  the  day's  work,  the  bare,  sunlit 
spaces  of  a  hospital  ward. 

Bare,  sunlit  spaces  were  what  Mrs.  Dench  most  suggested, 
the  spaces  of  her  own  Western  prairie  with  waving  grass, 
or  the  open  sea  or  the  desert.  That  was  the  first  impres 
sion,  —  a  large  simplicity,  a  veneer  of  smoothness.  But  then, 
as  you  looked,  you  became  aware  that  your  heel  was  caught ; 
the  intertwining  hieroglyphics  of  a  glazed  Chinese  vase  were 
nothing  to  her  intimate,  delicate  detail.  She  was  like  a 
great  plain,  wind-swept,  over  which  there  had  passed  cara 
vans  of  which  the  wind  hadn't  altogether  obliterated  the 
footprints.  Yet  so  much  had  passed  that  even  the  foot 
prints  were  blurred ;  the  personal  bias  —  the  personal  prej 
udice —  was  quite  alarmingly  absent.  And  out  of  this 
smoothness  there  came,  paradoxically,  a  personality. 
Mrs.  Dench  was  a  triumph  of  personality.  That  was  the 
beginning  and  end  of  her,  that  and  a  suggestion  of  a  splendor, 
a  sort  of  tropical  vegetation  which  was  guided  and  bound 
by  the  coldness  and  hardness  of  the  North. 

It  was  sometimes  wondered  how  Jane  could  be  her 
mother's  daughter.  Jane's  beauty  had  the  gleam  and  glitter 
of  angels'  wings;  her  eyes  were  gray  like  a  nun's  gray  dress, 
and  her  smile,  coming  from  the  long  mouth  —  her  one  ir 
refutable  resemblance  to  the  maternal  side  —  was  the  smile 


JANE  115 

of  a  young  postulant  who  gazes  at  the  world  from  closing 
convent  gates.  But  her  smile  was  all  for  the  convent  —  not 
for  the  world  she  was  renouncing.  Jane  Bench  had 
had  the  world  forced  down  her  throat;  she  preferred  the 
convent.  During  the  past  year  she  had  quite  forgotten  the 
existence  of  the  little  brown  men  in  the  boats;  her  world 
was  the  world  of  her  mother's  friends;  and  she  gravely 
felt  that  her  curiosity  about  it  was  dead.  Last  night  she 
had  sat  in  its  midst,  and  her  eyes  had  barely  once  left  her 
embroidery.  Before  David  Barlow  had  gone  to  America,  it 
had  been  very  different  —  she  had  liked  to  look  at  him. 
It  was  of  him  that  her  mother  presently  spoke :  — 
"Ah  —  you  found  the  bracelet !  I  thought  it  was  there. 
It's  one  of  David's  votive  offerings  and  not  a  thing  I  should 
care  to  lose."  Mrs.  Dench  had  taken  it  from  Jane's  hand 
and  slipped  it  over  her  own.  It  incased  her  strong,  smooth 
wrist  in  a  circle  of  gold  not  unlike  that  smaller  circle  which 
she  wore  on  the  fourth  finger  of  her  left  hand.  From  the 
fourth  finger  of  her  right  there  gleamed  a  splendid  sapphire, 
and  a  signet  ring  —  large  and  black  —  kept  it  company. 
She  was  not  at  all  bejewelled;  jewels  wouldn't  have  suited 
her.  Her  eyes,  with  their  tendency  towards  prominence 
and  their  color  like  the  deeper  yellow  of  transparent  amber, 
were  so  much  more  extraordinary  than  any  jewels  she 
could  possibly  have  afforded.  It  had  not  been  a  question  of 
affording  the  gold  bracelet ;  that,  as  she  said,  was  a  gift  from 
David.  A  young  man  with  the  enormous  sales  of  Barlow's 
Barley  Buns  back  of  him  could  treat  the  gift  of  a  bracelet 
with  the  necessary  casualness;  though,  as  it  happened, 
the  gift  of  this  one  had  a  special  significance.  He  had 
sent  it,  Mrs.  Dench  now  told  her  daughter,  on  the  day  of  his 


116  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

departure.  "It  was  so  charming  of  him  —  so  delicate  — 
not  to  send  anything  more — " 

"Not  to  keep  sending?" 

"No  —  not  to  send  a  more  elaborate  thing.  It's  so 
simple,  so  unpretentious,  —  it  doesn't  flaunt  his  riches  in 
our  poor  faces." 

"It  doesn't  have  to,"  said  Jane. 

"Doesn't  have  to?" 

"We  see  his  riches  without  that." 

"Ah  — we  do— " 

"His  going  makes  a  difference." 

"I  don't  understand — " 

"Why,  the  duke's  not  so  rich !  — " 

Mrs.  Dench  still  seemed  vague.  "The  duke?  I  don't 
see.  But  you  sound  appalling.  I  don't  think  you  know 
how  appalling  you  sound !" 

But  Jane  went  on,  unheeding.  "We  haven't  the  use  of 
Mr.  Barlow's  automobile;  we  haven't  fresh  flowers  every 
day—" 

"Oh  —  if  that's  what  you  mean !" 

Jane  turned.    "  What  else  could  I  mean  ?" 

Mrs.  Dench  glanced  up  quickly.  "You  know  you're 
really  not  half  so  much  of  a  fool  as  you  make  yourself  out. 
Even  if  you  are  the  most  perfect  specimen  of  the  jeune 
fiile  in  France  and  my  greatest  triumph,  your  lovely  inno 
cence  can  be  carried  too  far.  If  you  carry  it  as  far  as  that 
with  strangers,  you'll  be  misunderstood;  take  it  from  me  — 
you'll  make  a  mistake  —  people  will  think  I've  coached 
you." 

"And  isn't  that  just  what  you're  doing,  mother?" 

Jane's  mother  gave  it  up.    "You're  hopeless — hopeless  ! " 


JANE  117 

She  presently  returned  to  the  subject  of  the  bracelet, 
slipping  it  off  her  hand  as  she  walked  from  the  breakfast 
table  to  the  long  window.  "It  has  an  inscription  —  that's 
why  I  didn't  care  to  lose  it.  It's  only  visible  with  a  magni 
fying  glass,  but  still,  there  it  is  !" 

"What  does  the  inscription  say?" 

Mrs.  Dench  hesitated :  — 

" '  For  you  the  jungle  and  me  the  sea  spray, 
And  south  for  you  and  north  for  me  — ' 

It's  Swinburne  at  his  most  rabid,  but  I  don't  think  it  will 
contaminate  you." 

"That's  exactly  what  Mr.  Parrish  said  last  night." 

"About  Swinburne?" 

"No,  not  that.  I  forget  now  just  what  it  was  about, 
but  when  you  sent  me  in  to  entertain  him  —  him  and  Mme. 
Rostov  —  and  to  say  you'd  be  in  directly,  he  said  it  about 
something  —  oh,  no,  it  was  Mme.  Rostov  who  said  it  — " 

"In  defence  of  her  own  precious  talk?  She  would  need 
to,  because  Mme.  Rostov's  talk  frequently  contaminates 
me,  and  I'm  forty-four." 

"Ah,"  said  Jane,  "it's  age  that  counts !" 

ii 

Jane  Dench  was  sitting  on  a  bench  in  the  Luxembourg 
Gardens  watching  some  children  skip  rope.  In  Paris, 
thought  Jane,  even  the  children  were  sharp  and  knowing. 
These  wore  the  neatest  plaid  dresses  moulded  tightly  to 
their  straight  little  figures  and  flaring  widely  at  the  hem. 
A  'bonne'  with  starched  white  cap  strings  shared  Jane's 
bench  and  served  to  show  how  absolutely  differently  two 


118  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

people  may  do  the  same  thing.  She  was  also  watching 
the  children  and  sniffing  up  the  clear  morning  air;  but  as 
she  did  so  she  gave  an  effect  of  extreme  activity,  —  her  watch 
fulness  was  to  the  last  extent  vigilance.  Jane's  watchful 
ness,  though  equally  intent,  seemed  more  concerned  with 
some  inner  vision  —  a  vision  of  which  the  children  only 
pointed  the  moral  and  adorned  the  tale.  Neither  did  Jane 
take  the  clear  morning  air  into  her  lungs  in  quite  so  evident 
a  manner.  It  enveloped  her  in  a  first  haze  of  spring  through 
which  the  winter  coldness  found  it  hard  to  penetrate.  She 
opened  her  furred  jacket  at  the  throat;  Paris  wasn't  St. 
Petersburg. 

In  the  Luxembourg  Gardens,  Paris  was  at  its  best.  The 
newer  part  across  the  river  didn't  please  her  half  as  well ; 
that  was  the  part  which  contained  the  smaller  salon  —  the 
apartment  which  Mrs.  Bench  had  snapped  up  at  such  a  very 
nominal  rent.  Perhaps  that  was  just  the  reason  she  didn't 
like  it.  The  Luxembourg  Gardens  always  brought  before 
her  the  memory  of  a  beautiful  year  which  she  had  spent  near 
them  at  a  funny  little  boarding-school.  The  school  was 
very  cheap,  but  incidentally  very  good,  and  she  had  been 
extremely  happy  there.  It  was  the  year  before  she  was  sent 
to  the  convent,  and  she  had  been  happy  there,  too,  but  that 
was  different.  There  —  at  the  convent — they  didn't  take 
the  scholars  out  every  bright  afternoon  exactly  at  three 
and  let  them  play  in  the  Gardens.  They  did  at  the  little 
school,  in  batches  of  twelve,  dressed  in  black  alpaca  and 
with  their  hair  brushed  smoothly  back.  Jane  remembered 
how  they  looked,  all  those  dark  little  French  children,  and 
among  them  she  herself,  tall,  and  by  contrast  blond. 
Sometimes  those  most  favored  of  fortune  were  allowed  to 


JANE  119 

make  purchases  of  the  old  women  in  the  booths  —  wonder 
ful  purchases  of  tops  and  confections  and  queer  wooden 
dolls.  That  was  ten  years  ago,  and  the  booths,  from  a 
distance,  hadn't  changed ;  close  at  hand  they  were  smaller 
and  shabbier,  and  the  wares  they  displayed  were  less  alluring. 
But  what  could  you  expect  for  one  sou  —  two  sous  —  some 
times  fifty  centimes?  You  still  got  a  great  deal  for  your 
money  in  Paris,  though  not  as  much  as  formerly.  Jane 
remembered  the  inexhaustibleness  of  a  twenty-franc  piece 
sent  by  her  mother  in  lieu  of  that  lady's  company  at 
Christmas.  The  returning  holiday  makers  had  been  made 
green  with  envy  at  the  stories  of  reckless  extravagance  told 
by  the  few  children  who,  like  Jane,  had  not  left  the  school. 
There  were  advantages  in  waifhood  —  waifhood  modified  by 
twenty-franc  pieces. 

It  was  the  sort  of  morning  which  inclined  one  to  dwell 
upon  advantages,  and  Jane  felt  that  her  own  were  greater 
than  she  had  at  times  supposed.  Her  nationality  was  one, 
and  the  way  —  because  of  it  —  in  which  she  could  wander 
about  unattended  and  unmolested.  To  the  Frenchman  — 
impertinently  disposed  —  English  and  Americans  were  a 
law  unto  themselves ;  they  went  out  alone  and  they  didn't 
expect  to  be  bothered ;  they  consequently  weren't,  and  Jane 
could  sit  there  on  her  bench  beside  the  streamered  'bonne' 
quite  as  if  she  were  a  little  milliner's  apprentice.  Her  sense 
of  contentment  was  great.  She  was  glad,  after  all,  that  she 
lived  on  the  other  side  of  the  town ;  it  made  of  this  charmed 
spot  a  place  to  come  to.  She  felt  sure  that  nowhere  else  in 
all  Paris  was  the  air  so  springlike  and  the  children's  voices 
so  amazingly  shrill. 

"Un  —  deux  —  trois  —  quatre  —  cinq  — "    They 


120  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

counted  as  they  skipped.  Faster  and  faster  the  rope  cir 
cled  round  them,  and  when  at  last  they  stopped  breathless 
with  a  triumphant  "  quatre-vingt-dix ! "  Jane  clapped  her 
applause.  She  would  have  liked  to  applaud  all  the  hurry 
ing  people  on  the  long  paved  walk;  in  the  distance  she 
especially  noticed  a  young  man  in  a  brown  suit  who  swung 
his  cane.  Their  hurry  made  for  her  leisure.  She  could  sit 
quite  still  and  watch.  Her  wooden  bench  was  a  throne 
before  which  her  kingdom  passed  in  review;  she  was  the 
Lady  of  Shalott  gazing  into  the  magic  mirror. 

The  young  man  in  the  brown  suit  amused  her  most. 
He  was  probably  an  Englishman.  No  one  but  an  English 
man  could  be  so  big  and  at  the  same  time  so  jaunty.  This 
one  had  all  the  jauntiness  of  an  Englishman  newly  arrived  in 
Paris.  She  wondered  that  he  should  be  in  the  Luxembourg 
Gardens  when  the  Bois  was  open  to  him.  The  words  of  a 
song  popular  in  her  early  childhood  came  into  her  head. 

"  As  I  walk  along  the  Bois  de  Bologne 
With  an  independent  air, 
You  can  hear  the  girls  declare 
That  he  must  be  a  millionnaire  —  " 

She  found  herself  humming  it.  The  song  went  on  most 
touchingly.  The  girls  sighed  and  winked  their  other  eye, 
and  it  finally  appeared  that  the  singer  and  object  of  these 
attentions  had  broken  the  bank  at  Monte  Carlo. 

"  And  7  to  Monte  Carlo  went 
Just  to  get  my  winter's  rent. 

Dame  Fortune  smiled  upon  me  as  she'd  neVer  smiled  before  — 
And  I  have  lots  of  money.    I'm  a  gent ! " 

Jane  would  never  have  accused  the  young  man  in  the  brown 
suit  of  not  being  a  gent  in  that  meaning  of  the  word  at  least. 


JANE  121 

It  was  evidently  the  only  one,  however,  for  he  had  stopped 
before  her  and  lifted  his  hat.  She  had  a  rushing  sense  of  the 
imminent  disagreeable ;  but  she  looked  up  squarely  and  met 
his  eyes. 

"Why,  Mr.  Parrish!" 

"Miss  Bench." 

"I  thought  you  were  an  Englishman." 

Ralph  Parrish  laughed.  "  You  didn't  think  of  me  as  any 
thing,  as  just  now  you  didn't  know  me." 

"Well,  you  see  I  had  it  all  arranged  that  you  were  an 
Englishman  and  why  you  were,  so  knowing  you  was  a  sur 
prise." 

"Don't  you  ever  know  Englishmen,  and  do  you  usually 
bestow  so  much  thought  upon  strangers  ?  May  I  sit  down  ?  " 
He  had  done  so  before  she  had  a  chance  to  reply ;  he  had  a 
way  of  considering  things  of  that  sort  settled  beforehand. 

The  'bonne'  got  up  and  left  them. 

Parrish  looked  at  her  as  she  reseated  herself  a  short 
distance  away.  "She  doesn't  like  us?" 

"She  doesn't  understand  English,"  said  Jane. 

"And  you  do?  You  understand  all  her  misinterpreta 
tions  —  all  her  reasons  ?" 

"Why,  of  course.  She  thought  you  were  what  I  believe 
you  call  in  New  York  a  masher,  and  she  thought  I  didn't 
mind." 

Parrish  stared.  "In  Europe  you  take  things  for  granted, 
don't  you  ?  The  doctrine  of  original  sin  and  all  the  rest  of 
it — "  He  seemed  comfortably  to  stretch  himself  to  this 
doctrine  as  he  crossed  his  well-turned  legs  and  laid  his  cane 
upon  his  knee. 

"Well,  you  see,"  said  Jane,  "in  Europe  there  are  so  many 
things  to  be  taken  for  granted  —  dreadful  things." 


122  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"Oh,  come,  you're  too  pessimistic;  it's  surely  not  worse 
than  America." 

"I  don't  know  America." 

"And  you  do  know  Europe?  And  here  I  am  discussing 
morality  with  you.  What  would  your  mother  say?" 

Jane  ignored  his  question,  and  when  she  at  last  spoke  it 
was  contemplatively  rather  than  boastingly.  "Oh,  the 
subjects  that  people  discuss  with  me  !  " 

"And  it  all  rolls  off  you  like  water  off  a  duck's  back? 
You  are  a  marvellous  child.  But  that's  because  you've 
been  so  beautifully  brought  up.  Your  mother's  a  marvel 
lous  woman  —  I  take  off  my  hat  to  her." 

"Every  one  takes  off  his  hat  to  mother." 

"On  your  account?"  smiled  Parrish. 

"Oh,  no,  on  her  own.     I  don't  matter." 

"When  a  pretty  girl  says  she  doesn't  matter — "  Par- 
rish's  manner  conveyed  a  hint  of  the  situation's  hopeless 
ness.  Then  he  looked  up  at  her  out  of  his  handsome  eyes, 
and  the  situation  wasn't  so  hopeless.  "You're  a  marvel 
lous  child,  and  you're  exquisite." 

"  Is  that  the  sort  of  thing  you  say  to  Mme.  Rostov  ?  "  No 
one  but  Jane  could  have  achieved  it  without  impertinence. 

Parrish  was  visibly  embarrassed.  "Why,  I  tell  her  the 
truth  just  as  I'm  telling  it  to  you,  or  I'd  tell  it  to  your 
mother.  But  as  you're  all  very  different,  the  same  things 
wouldn't  apply  to  you — the  same  things  wouldn't  be  truths. 
So,  no,  it's  not  the  sort  of  thing  I  say  to  Mme.  Rostov." 

In  the  nunlike  Jane  there  suddenly  arose  an  unconquer 
able  impulse.  "You're  a  gay  deceiver!  "  The  words, 
with  their  burden  of  coquetry,  were  out  of  her  mouth. 

It  was  the  one  thing  needed  to  complete  her  companion's 


JANE  123 

reckless  ease.  "Isn't  that  what  women  are  supposed  to  be 
for?"  he  asked. 

"To  be  deceived?" 

"  Yes,  to  be  deceived." 

"Imagine  mother!" 

"Oh,  you'd  have  to  get  up  pretty  early  to  deceive  your 
mother." 

"And  me?" 

"I  should  hate  to  try." 

"That's  because  you'd  have  mother  to  answer  to." 

Parrish  stared .  ' '  You  know  you  take  a  fellow  off  his  feet . ' ' 
No  newly  arrived  Englishman  could  have  been  jauntier. 
"Yes,  you  take  a  fellow  off  his  feet  —  and  to  think  that 
when  I  saw  you  last,  you  were  a  little  girl  in  short  dresses  !" 

"  Yes,  I  remember.  That  was  one  of  the  vacations  when 
mother  could  have  me." 

"She  made  a  great  point  of  having  you,"  said  Parrish. 
"She'd  talked  about  it  for  months  before;  and  when  you 
finally  appeared,  with  the  convent  pallor  still  fresh,  she  led 
you  before  us  —  'This  is  my  little  girl'  —  To  remember  you 
then,  and  now  to  see  you  !  " 

"I've  changed?" 

"To  use  a  bit  of  New  York  slang  which  you  probably 
have  never  heard  —  you've  won  out." 

"That's  sweet  of  you." 

"Tell  me,"  Parrish  presently  asked,  "what  is  your 
mother  going  to  do  with  you  ?" 

"She's  going  to  marry  me." 

"It  should  not  prove  difficult." 

"Well,  you  see  she's  particular  and  I'm  particular  and 
we're  not  particular  in  the  same  way." 


124  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"Your  particularities,  combined,  exclude  from  the  lists 
almost  every  one?" 

"Exactly." 

"Why  won't  you  take  me?" 

"I  should  be  delighted;  but  I'm  not  sure  of  mother." 

"How  could  she  ask  for  anything  better?" 

Jane  caught  his  spirit.     "  She  couldn't  —  possibly." 

"It's  a  pact?" 

"A  pact." 

Jane  was  enjoying  herself  immensely.  It  was  the  kind 
of  talk  with  which  she  was  very  familiar  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  spectator,  but  with  which  a  closer  contact  had 
never  proved  successful.  She  had  usually  shrunk  from  the 
closer  contact,  and  now  she  surprised  herself.  She  had 
talked  to  men  —  talked  to  her  mother's  friends.  She  had 
had  the  longest  talks  with  little  David  Barlow ;  but  it  was 
difficult  to  be  really  happy  with  one  whose  whole  attention 
was  given  to  some  one  else.  While  Ralph  Fairish,  however 
much  he  might  be  absorbed  in  Mme.  Rostov  or  even  in  Mrs. 
Dench,  had  a  certain  largeness  of  capacity  —  especially 
now,  when  his  energies  were  not  taken  up  by  the  require 
ments  of  wholesale  fur  dealing;  for  he  had  finished  his 
labors  and  was  taking  a  much  needed  and  much  deferred 
rest.  Jane  had  not  been  far  wrong  when  she  had  discerned 
in  his  distant,  cane-swinging  figure  a  certain  holiday  de 
meanor.  It  was  still  in  the  gay  spirit  of  holiday  that  he 
continued  to  address  her:  — 

"  If  it's  a  pact  that  you  should  take  me,  that  I  should  take 
you  off  your  mother's  anxious  hands  — "  He  looked  from 
his  companion's  laughing  face  to  the  populated  stretch  of 
paved  walk  —  "If  it's  a  pact,  what  a  pity  it  is  that  there 


JANE  125 

lacks  an  opportunity  to  seal  it.  Oh  —  I  beg  your  pardon. 
I'm  afraid  you  think  I've  carried  the  joke  too  far." 

Jane  had  taken  talk  of  the  pact  lightly  enough,  but  at 
mention  of  the  sealing,  she  turned  helplessly  scarlet.  The 
blush  was  accomplished  without  consciousness  of  embarrass 
ment  ;  that  followed  after,  and  with  it  shame  and  a  second 
scarlet  flood.  The  subject  of  kisses  was  among  those  which 
people  had  discussed  with  her,  for  in  spite  of  Mrs.  Dench 
ever  present  to  be  answered  to,  that  lady  numbered  among 
her  friends  many  whose  enterprise  exceeded  their  caution ; 
but  it  was  a  subject  with  which  she  had  proved  herself 
fairly  competent  to  deal.  Her  beautiful  innocence  was 
tempered  with  a  kind  of  superficial  experience.  It  was 
an  experience,  however,  which  didn't  include  the  holiday 
humor  of  youth.  Youth  put  the  thing  in  a  new,  strange 
light.  She  was  a  moment  in  conquering  the  scarlet,  a 
moment  in  getting  to  her  feet. 

"Won't  you  walk  home  with  me?" 

"It  strikes  me  you're  very  forgiving." 

She  gave  him  her  most  conventual  smile.  "Not  in  the 
least." 

m 

Parrish  not  only  walked  home  with  her;  he  stayed,  at  the 
invitation  of  Mrs.  Dench,  to  lunch.  Besides  Parrish,  that 
hospitable  lady  to-day  grouped  about  her  midday  board 
the  Duke  and  Duchess  de  Clopin  and  M.  Gadillon.  The 
Rostovs  were  conspicuous  by  their  absence.  "Had  I 
known  you  were  coming  !  — "  she  intimated  to  Parrish  that 
the  omission  would  not  have  occurred.  He  accepted  it 
manfully.  There  was  a  time  in  his  glorious  leisure  for 


126  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

everything.  Two  weeks  more  of  strolling  about  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  and  then  back  to  the  city  of  work. 
"You  don't  know  what  it  means  to  me,  this  glimpse  of  a 
place  where  work  isn't  the  only  thing  in  the  world !" 

Mrs.  Bench  searched  back  in  a  dim  memory  of  America, 
and  doubted  if  it  were  quite  as  bad  as  that. 

"Yet,  it  is  —  it's  an  eternal  pull.  There's  no  let-up. 
Over  here  you  have  time."  He  was  sure. 

M.  Gadillon  agreed  with  him  about  the  mistake  of  a  too 
prolonged  effort.  He  spoke  as  one  who  knew,  for  he  had 
lived  in  America  one  whole  winter.  The  height  of  the 
buildings  impressed  him. 

Conversation  ran  on,  touching  lightly  here  and  there. 
One  of  their  number,  the  Princess  Karma,  was  paying  a 
visit  to  New  York,  and  from  her  letters  it  was  plain  she  found 
it  as  much  a  city  of  pleasure  as  Parrish  did  of  work.  Par- 
rish  had  seen  her  and  verified  this  point  of  view. 

"  Of  course  if  she  had  lived  all  her  life  in  Northern  fast 
nesses,"  Mrs.  Dench  threw  out,  "I  could  easily  understand 
what  a  jolly  place  New  York  would  seem  to  her;  but  as  it 
is,  what  she  likes  there  is  quite  beyond  me." 

"And  yet,"  said  the  duchess,  "you  spoke  the  other  day 
of  sometime  going  there  yourself." 

"Oh,  if  I  ever  decided  to  go  back,  it  would  be  for  Jane." 

"Forme,  mother?" 

"Yes.  Surely  it  wouldn't  be  for  me!"  Mrs.  Dench 
leaned  back  a  little  in  her  big  carved  chair  at  the  head  of 
the  long  table.  "Jane  has  a  passion  for  America,"  she 
explained.  "As  she's  had  only  the  briefest  look  at  it,  it's 
rather  queer  —  a  sort  of  instinctive  nostalgia.  So  some 
day  —  just  when  you're  all  least  expecting  it  —  we'll 


JANE  127 

pack  our  trunk.  We'll  follow  in  the  princess's  footsteps 
and  pay  a  visit." 

M.  Gadillon  was  reassuring.  "  Oh,  you  will  not  mind  it. 
The  upper  part  of  New  York,  —  the  shops,  the  theatres, 
the  avenues,  —  it  is  not  so  very  unlike  Paris.  It  is  down 
town  that  is  so  strange." 

"And  besides,"  said  Parrish,  "you  know  the  Barlows." 

"Yes?"     His  hostess  was  frankly  puzzled. 

"  It's  at  the  Barlows'  that  the  princess  is  staying.  If  you 
were  really  nice  to  them  — " 

"Yes?"  Mrs.  Bench  interrupted  him. 

Parrish  carried  it  off  with  a  laugh.  "Why,  if  you  were 
really  tremendously  nice  to  them,  you  know,  —  why,  you 
could  follow  in  the  princess's  footsteps  still  more  closely!" 

"And  stay  with  them?  I  shouldn't  think  of  so  far  pre 
suming  on  my  friendship  with  young  Mr.  Barlow.  The 
princess  is  privileged.  The  princess  is  alone  in  the  world 
and  can  do  what  she  pleases.  I  am  not  alone  in  the  world 
—  far  from  it.  It's  plain  you  know  nothing  of  the  respon 
sibilities  of  motherhood,  Mr.  Parrish."  She  pronounced  it 
richly  — '  motherrhood'  — 

For  a  moment  Ralph  Parrish  had  an  impression  of  a 
woman  quite  other  than  the  one  he  had  known  for  several 
years  past  as  Mrs.  Dench.  The  Mrs.  Dench  he  had  known 
was  essentially  cosmopolitan  and  suave,  occupying  her 
slightly  anomalous  position  in  the  world  with  an  easy  grace 
which  made  it  for  her  eminently  right.  She  was  without 
protruding  angles  and  limiting  prejudices ;  her  golden  and 
rather  prominent  eyes  could  gaze  as  unabashed  upon  the 
nakedest  savage  as  upon  the  most  uniformed  emperor. 
She  was  without  country  and  without  age  —  almost  with- 


128  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

out  sex,  if  by  sex  was  meant  the  usual  flaunting  femininity. 
And  now  something  in  those  rolled  '  r's '  —  something  in  her 
expression  as  she  had  replied  to  Parrish  —  made  him  see 
her  as  a  woman,  no  longer  young,  whose  well-kept  house  was 
in  that  part  of  the  world  known  in  America  as  the  Middle 
West,  and  upon  whom  the  responsibilities  of '  motherrhood ' 
sat  heavily. 

All  this  was  in  the  moment  it  took  him  to  look  away  from 
her  to  his  plate.  His  plate  was  of  intricate  design  and  har 
bored  a  comestible  which  surely  was  not  of  the  Middle 
West  —  that  might  be  safely  said,  even  though  its  exact 
origin  was  effectively  disguised.  Parrish  toyed  with  a  mor 
sel  on  the  end  of  his  fork,  and  noted  the  delicate  tracery 
of  the  fork's  silver.  The  doily  beneath  his  plate  was  of 
lace;  between  its  meshes  the  table  showed  its  black  ma 
hogany.  Then  his  appraising  merchant's  glance  lifted 
to  the  room  itself  with  its  high  ceiling  and  panelled  walls. 
The  long  windows  were  heavily  curtained  and  gave  an  effect 
of  dimness  which  went  to  prove  that  Paris  wasn't  all  gilt 
and  sunlight.  If  it  wasn't  for  the  unmistakable  foreignness 
and  greater  gorgeousness,  Mrs.  Bench's  dining  room  bore 
a  strong  resemblance  to  the  big  room  at  Hornmouth  after 
Emily  Stedman  had  cleared  away  the  metal  tables.  It 
was  the  room  at  Hornmouth  spread  for  a  feast ;  Miss  Sted- 
man's  cousin  saw  the  analogy,  saw  —  also  —  the  absolute 
difference  of  its  inhabiting  spirit.  The  woman  in  the  linen 
shirtwaist  who  leaned  back  in  the  big  carved  chair  and 
placed  upon  its  arm  her  heavy  white  hand  was  Circe  in  the 
midst  of  her  orgies.  And  then  a  view  of  that  vast  section 
of  country  known  as  the  Middle  West  again  obtruded  itself. 

Parrish's  array  of  facts  tottered.      The  silver,  the  cur- 


JANE  129 

tains,  the  blackness  of  the  mahogany,  the  sleek- jowled 
serving-man  who  stood  behind  Mrs.  Bench's  chair,  the  dishes 
of  fruit  that  were  so  like  the  dishes  of  fruit  in  an  old  tapestry, 
• —  surely  these  were  facts,  and  facts  congruous  with  the 
woman  he  had  known.  His  repeated  rehearsal  of  them, 
which  might  seem  lacking  in  taste  and  erring  on  the  side 
of  the  commercial,  was  really  a  sort  of  rubbing  of  his  eyes 
to  assure  himself  of  his  perfect  wakefulness  —  a  sharp 
pinching  to  fight  off  the  absurd  hallucination  born  of 
'motherrhood.'  And  there  were  other  facts  —  why,  there 
were  certain  things  he  knew  about  Mrs.  Dench  !  The  things 
no  one  said,  but  every  one  was  aware  of ;  the  reservations ; 
the  doors  one  did  not  open  —  and  yet  in  not  doing  so,  didn't 
one  take  upon  one 's  self  a  great  deal  ?  Parrish  fell  into  a 
tangle  of  doubting.  The  things  he  knew  —  his  array  of 
facts  —  again  tottered.  It  was  a  tottering  galling  to  his 
self-respect,  for  he  had  never  been  given  to  imaginations 
about  his  friends ;  he  hated  to  brand  himself  as  a  suspicious 
old  woman ;  it  were  better  —  almost  —  that  his  facts, 
disagreeable  as  they  were,  should  stand  firm.  Surely  his 
hostess  was  a  little  too  suave  and  a  little  too  easy;  her 
surroundings,  however  accidental  and  however  temporary, 
succeeded  in  always  being  a  little  too  gorgeous;  in  her 
gilded  salon  the  masculine  element  too  greatly  preponder 
ated.  Yet  as  for  this  last,  there  were  the  duchess  and  the 
princess  and  Mme.  Rostov.  Mme.  Rostov  —  Parrish 
shook  that  in  his  teeth.  But  above  all  these  there  was  the 
wonderful  spotlessness  of  Jane.  The  value  of  that  couldn't 
be  overestimated,  even  in  all  that  Mrs.  Dench  might  con 
stantly  say  about  it. 
Jane  sat  opposite  her  mother  at  the  long  table  between 


130  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

the  duchess  and  M.  Gadillon,  Parrish  and  the  duke  flanking 
their  hostess.  After  '  motherrhood '  there  had  been  a  pause 
which  the  duke  now  ended.  "  Do  you  know,  it  is  a  curious 
thing  that  in  the  year  or  two  during  which  I  have  known 
young  Mr.  Barlow  I  have  never  once  eaten  a  Barley  Bun?" 

"Oh,  I  have,"  said  Mrs.  Dench;  "they  come  in  boxes, 
fifty  centimes  at  the  English-American  grocer's.  I  saw 
them  in  the  window  as  I  was  passing  with  David,  and  I  made 
him  go  in  and  get  me  some." 

"  You  were  cruel." 

"  David  didn't  mind.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  rather  proud. 
I  have  yet  to  see  the  thing  that  David  can't  be  proud 
about.  He'd  hate  to  be  accused  of  not  being,  you  know, 
—  of  being  ashamed  of  his  father's  business.  I  had  diffi 
culty  in  restraining  him  from  eating  his  buns  in  the  street. 
He  carried  the  package  under  his  arm  like  a  furled  banner." 

Parrish  smiled.  "  I  should  think  he  would  treat  it  with 
honor.  The  riches  it  has  brought  him  in  are  fabulous. 
Why,  in  New  York  they  have  a  house  which  takes  up  half 
the  block,  and  if  you  know  what  that  means  —  in  New 
York!" 

"You  know  them?" 

"I  think  I  told  you  that  I  dined  there  at  the  request  of 
the  princess." 

"Is  the  princess  free  to  request  whom  she  pleases?" 
The  inquiry  was  Jane's. 

"Why,  Jane!  If  she  requested  Mr.  Parrish,  wouldn't 
they  jump  at  the  chance?" 

"Yes,  mother,  of  course  they  would." 

The  subject  of  this  discussion  accused  Miss  Dench  of  not 
appreciating  him.  She  assured  him  that  she  did.  There 


JANE  131 

was  in  Jane's  give  and  take  a  suggestion  of  her  mother's 
ease. 

"Didn't  the  Barlows,  Mr.  Parrish?" 

"Didn't  the  Barlows  what?" 

"  Appreciate  you  ?  " 

"  I'm  afraid  not,  entirely." 

"That's  hard  on  them."    She  relapsed  into  silence. 

Mrs.  Dench  again  took  up  the  thread.  "  I've  heard  that 
Mrs.  Barlow,  David's  mother,  is  such  a  charming  woman. 
You've  met  her?" 

"Yes  —  when  I  dined  there.  She's  very  clever,  very 
quick  —  what  you  call  very  American." 

"She's  like  her  son?" 

"I  really  can't  say.  I'm  hardly  sure  what  he's  like  him 
self;  he  seems  complicated.  Are  you  sure?" 

"What  David's  like?" 

"Yes  —  what  David's  like." 

Mrs.  Dench's  glance  shifted  to  the  foot  of  the  table.  "  If 
you  want  to  know  what  David's  like,  why  don't  you  ask 
Jane?" 

IV 

The  Duke  de  Clopin  was  ushered  in  by  the  same  servant 
— sleek  of  jowl — who  was  in  the  habit  of  standing  behind  Mrs. 
Dench's  dining  chair.  He  was  ushered  in  and  left  alone 
for  a  time  amply  sufficient  for  him  to  repent  of  his  folly 
in  having  come.  His  was  a  fool's  errand.  He  could  no 
more  turn  Mrs.  Dench  from  her  course  than  he  could,  single- 
handed,  change  the  direction  of  a  great  flowing  river.  She 
was  going  to  leave  Paris;  she  was  going  to  America  to  live; 
and  the  only  wonder  was  that  she  hadn't  done  so  long  before. 


132  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

The  duke  felt  himself  inadequate  to  the  situation.  He 
faced  it,  and  faced  the  great  door  through  which  Mrs.  Dench 
would  presently  enter,  much  as  a  lion  tamer  new  to  the 
game  faces  the  opened  entrance  to  the  cage.  He  would 
make  a  fight — do  his  best— and  more  than  that  could  no 
man  do.  The  platitude  rose  to  his  lips  as  he  turned  and 
looked  out  through  the  long  French  windows  to  the  wide 
boulevard  below. 

'La  Belle  France'  stretched  before  him.  It  seemed  as 
if  it  were  he  himself  who  was  leaving  it.  Mrs.  Dench  had 
known  it  and  loved  it.  She  had  appreciation,  she  had 
understanding,  she  had  sympathy,  and  the  good  God  had 
given  her  an  excessive  charm.  It  wasn't  so  much  a  ques 
tion  of  what  she  would  do  without  France  as  what  France 
would  do  without  her,  and  the  desolation  of  France  came 
to  a  point  in  the  desolation  of  the  Duke  de  Clopin.  He 
nervously  smoothed  the  very  round  silk  hat  which,  accord 
ing  to  a  fashion  slightly  past,  he  had  not  abandoned  in  the 
hall.  He  was,  as  always,  exquisitely  attired;  his  pointed 
beard  was  trimmed  and  combed,  and  his  light  gloves  and 
slender  cane  were  the  perfection  of  the  haberdasher's  art. 
As  he  stood  there  before  the  windows,  very  straight  and 
very  tense,  he  might  have  suggested  to  undiscriminating 
Anglo-Saxon  eyes  the  proprietor  of  a  large  dressmaking 
establishment  come  himself  on  the  delicate  mission  of  pre 
senting  a  long-owed  bill  to  a  distinguished  customer.  His 
nervousness  visibly  increased.  He  turned  from  the  window 
to  a  reinspection  of  the  door  through  which  Mrs.  Dench  was 
to  appear. 

The  servant  came  in  and  laid  a  cloth  for  tea.  The  duke 
didn't  like  tea,  but  at  that  hour  Mrs.  Dench  always  had  it. 


JANE  133 

It  was  a  habit  dating  from  a  year  which  she  had  once  spent 
in  England;  she  had  a  tremendous  capacity  for  picking  up 
habits  of  that  sort  and  making  them  her  own.  She  'had  a 
capacity  for  making  things  her  own,  and  often  an  utter  irre 
sponsibility  about  them  afterwards;  of  this  her  leaving 
France  to  its  fate  was  an  example.  She  would  never  return, 
he  felt  sure.  It  was  final  —  complete.  But  there  was  still 
the  bare  hope  upon  which  he  had  come. 

The  big  doorway  in  the  end  of  the  room  changed  from 
blankness  and  darkness  to  splendid  actuality.  The  duke 
looked  up  with  the  hope  in  his  eyes  and  addressed  Mrs. 
Dench  as  Grace. 

"Maurice — "  She  gave  him  her  hand,  over  which  he 
bent  low.  "  I've  been  all  day  packing.  It's  a  task  —  the 
accumulation  of  twenty  years !  I  had  everything  brought 
up  from  the  warehouse  and  spread  out  in  one  of  these  in 
numerable  rooms.  I  was  dust  from  head  to  foot." 

Her  visitor  wasn't  listening. 

"Grace,  I  have  come  to  ask  you  to  stay." 

"Stay  where?" 

"  Here  —  anywhere ;  but  not  to  leave  —  not  to  go  to 
America." 

She  had  sat  down  and  he  was  standing  before  her.  There 
was  in  his  manner  a  suggestion  both  of  acquisitiveness  and 
of  anger ;  but  she  turned  it  aside  as  her  wide  mouth  widened 
in  a  smile.  "My  dear,  dear  Maurice,  isn't  that  a  rather 
strange  request?" 

"If  you  refer  to  my  right  to  make  it  — " 

"I  don't  refer  to  anything  of  the  sort.  You  ask  me  to 
upset  all  my  plans  —  give  up  my  stateroom  —  unpack  my 
trunks  — " 


134  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"Ah  —  it's  more  than  a  mere  question  of  staterooms 
and  trunks!" 

"You  ask  me,"  Mrs.  Dench  continued,  "to  reverse  a 
decision  that  I've  arrived  at  after  the  maturest  considera 
tion  —  to  disarrange  my  entire  future.  And  in  order, 
simply,  that  you  may  continue  to  have  the  pleasure  of  my 
society!  My  dear,  dear  Maurice,  I  am  not  sufficiently 
altruistic  —  " 

The  duke  made  light  of  the  adjective.  "Altruistic?  I 
did  not  expect  it." 

Mrs.  Dench  waited.    "You  expected?" 

"The  heavens  to  fall,  I  suppose."  Her  visitor  turned 
away.  "  Is  there  nothing  that  you  would  stay  for  ?  Noth 
ing  which  would  keep  you?" 

She  came  out  with  a  statement  remarkable  for  its  irrel 
evance.  "You  know  perfectly  well  that  you're  tied  hand 
and  foot." 

"I  believe  you  enjoy  my  bondage." 

"  Enjoy  it  ?  I  deplore  it.  You  get  on  my  nerves,  walk 
ing  about;  sit  down." 

The  duke  did  so.  "I  think  it's  there  that  you  touch  the 
secret  of  your  departure.  I  get  on  your  nerves." 

"  Is  that  your  motive  in  coming  here  to-day  —  vulgar 
curiosity  to  find  out  why  I'm  going?" 

"  Oh,  you  are  ruthless  —  ruthless  !  You  finish  with  a 
thing  and  you  toss  it  away.  That  is  why  you  are  so  power 
ful  ;  you  have  no  conscience,  no  regrets." 

"You  make  me  out  like  the  car  of  Juggernauth.  I'm 
really  not  as  bad  as  that.  It  strikes  me  I'm  not  bad  at  all 
to  let  you  talk  to  me  like  this." 

"Why  do  you  not  ring  for  Auguste  to  show  me  out?" 


JANE  135 

"Because  that's  not  the  sort  of  thing  that  I  do  with  old 
friends."  Mrs.  Bench  was  again  smiling,  and  as  the  duke's 
surprise  deepened  he  was  caught  up  in  the  swirl  of  her 
laughter.  He  laughed  in  spite  of  himself,  for  hers  came 
peal  upon  peal  with  the  wide  mouth  open  and  a  gleam  of 
teeth  and  redness.  He  always  saw  her  like  that,  with  one 
feature  dominant.  Sometimes  it  was  her  eyes  or  the  large, 
smooth  oval  of  her  face.  It  seemed  as  though  his  vision 
wasn't  of  sufficient  range  or  strength  to  take  her  whole  and 
unblurred. 

She  gave  him  his  tea,  and  it  was  several  minutes  before  he 
reverted  afresh  to  his  impending  doom.  "Lilla  says  that 
she  will  miss  you." 

"I  know.  She  even  came  herself  to  tell  me  so.  You 
don't  appreciate  Lilla.  Ah  —  you  think  I  shouldn't  have 
said  that !  But  the  fault  was  yours  for  bringing  up  her 
name.  My  friendship  for  you  and  my  friendship  for  your 
wife  have  always  been  so  apart.  When  I  said,  a  moment 
ago,  that  I  deplored  your  bondage,  you  know  that  I  meant 
nothing  against  her.  I  am  not  wholly  ungrateful.  Where 
should  I  be  now  if  it  were  not  for  the  Duchess  de 
Clopin?" 

"Just  where  you  are." 

"Literally,  yes.  Figuratively,  no.  Think  what  she  has 
done  for  me." 

"  You  do  for  yourself.  She  has  done  nothing  but  admire 
and  adore  you." 

"  Yes,  but  think  what  her  admiration  means.  Much  more 
than  even  yours  —  much,  much  more." 

The  duchess's  husband  had  little  to  answer  against  that. 
"To  you  it  means  more?" 


136  OTHER   PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"  Don't  be  an  utter  fool !  It  means  more  to  the  princess 
and  the  Rostovs,  all  the  people  who  come  here,  Mr.  Par- 
rish—  " 

"And  how  much  does  Mr.  Parrish's  admiration  mean?" 

" To  Mme.  Rostov?" 

"No.    To  you." 

"It  fortunately  doesn't  mean  very  much,  for  it  doesn't 
exist." 

The  duke  was  incredulous.  "His  admiration  for  you 
doesn't  exist?" 

"I  assure  you,  no.  Why  don't  you  ask  how  much  it 
means  to  Jane  ?  First  Mme.  Rostov  —  then  Jane  —  I 
only  come  third." 

"  Oh,  my  angel  —  you  third !  — " 

"Third,  or  perhaps  thirty-third,  for  all  I  know.  He 
doesn't  get  on  to  me  at  all.  But  the  subject  of  Jane  brings 
me  to  an  answer  to  your  question.  I'm  leaving  for  the 
reason  I  gave  you  all  the  other  day  at  lunch  —  for  Jane. 
You  don't  believe  me?  Nevertheless,  we  sail  next  Sat 
urday  from  Havre  —  the  first  of  March  —  which  date  we've 
carefully  chosen  because  it's  also  the  date  of  Mr.  Parrish's 
departure,  and  we'll  have  the  unutterable  convenience  of  a 
man  to  look  after  us  on  the  voyage." 

"Does  Mr.  Parrish  know?" 

"Of  course  he  knows.     He's  overjoyed." 

The  duke  looked  at  the  stunted  orange  trees  which  grew 
in  the  green  tubs  outside  the  windows  on  the  iron  balcony. 
"Oh,  my  angel!  What  man  wouldn't  be?" 

"  If  you  think  it's  he  I'm  planning  for  Jane,  you're  quite 
mistaken." 

"Perhaps  it's  he  you're  planning  for  yourself?" 


JANE  137 

"I  only  wish  I  was  presumptuous  enough.  He  doesn't 
look  at  me!" 

"Is  it  to  make  him  look  at  you  that  you're  leaving  for 
America?" 

Mrs.  Dench  chose  to  disregard  her  guest's  disregard  of  her 
given  reason.  She  smiled.  "When  I  come  to  the  pass 
when  I  have  to  make  young  men  look  at  me,  I'll  let  you 
know!" 

"Grace,  Grace  — "  And  for  the  third  time  the  duke 
repeated,  "Mon  ange — " 


CHAPTER  VII 

NATURE 


As  she  lay,  propped  up  by  pillows,  Emily  Stedman  could 
see  through  her  fluttering  curtains  a  square  of  sky  which 
seemed  to  have  hit  upon  the  happiest  shade  of  blue;  and 
by  raising  her  head  ever  so  little  she  could  see  the  ocean 
that  stretched  out  beneath  it  and  purred  gently  in  the 
foggy  winter  sunlight.  Everything  does  what  it  has  to 
do  gently  in  Ocean  City.  The  sojourner  finds  himself  in 
a  place  of  no  work,  no  worries,  no  fixed  hours,  no  problems ; 
in  a  place  of  inconsequent  coming  and  going.  He  finds 
himself  with  the  usually  feather-like  time  weighing 
heavy.  But,  granted  he  is  as  other  sojourners,  —  a  seeker 
after  health,  —  this  heaviness  of  time  is  the  thing  most 
counted  on  to  help  his  quest,  the  thing  —  also  —  most 
counted  on  to  swell  his  weekly  bill.  In  January  there  was 
absolutely  nothing  to  do  but  to  gaze  out  at  the  alternating 
brightness  and  dulness  of  the  sea. 

The  sea  purred  gently.  At  last  the  Mother  of  Mysteries 
was  securely  harnessed  to  the  uses  of  civilization;  at  last 
every  facility  afforded  for  her  quiet  enjoyment.  There  she 
was,  outside  Emily  Stedman's  window,  and  in  storm  there 
were  breakers  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach;  but  the  water 
which  the  nurse  brought  to  Emily's  bedside  had  run  into 

138 


NATURE  139 

the  pitcher  in  a  clear,  gentle  flow,  quite  unsullied  by  storms 
and  waves  and  bits  of  broken  wreck. 

The  nurse  bathed  her  face,  and  the  salt  sting  sent  the 
faint  color  to  her  cheeks.  Dr.  Jeffries  had  recommended 
Ocean  City  in  almost  the  same  breath  that  he  had  diag 
nosed  her  case;  its  comparative  nearness  to  town,  and  yet 
—  touched  as  it  is  by  the  Gulf  Stream  —  its  extraordinary 
mildness,  made  it  the  place  above  all  others  for  her  to  come 
to.  For  the  strength  to  do  so,  she  had  waited  in  a  darkened 
room,  and  she  now  waited,  propped  up  by  pillows,  to  recover 
from  the  fatigue  of  the  journey.  It  was  now  the  middle 
of  January,  and  she  had  been  there  since  the  first  day  of 
the  New  Year. 

Dr.  Jeffries  had  found  her  illness  the  result  of  overstrain. 
He  banished  "Mrs.  Dallowfield."  When  Emily  had  asked 
him  what  he  expected  her  to  do  with  the  leisure  thus  thrust 
upon  her,  —  whether  she  was  to  learn  knitting,  —  he  had 
given  her  one  of  his  sharp,  quick  looks  and  suggested  that 
she  learn  laziness.  She  proved  an  apter  pupil  than  she 
would  have  imagined  possible.  In  town,  with  the  darkened 
room  and  the  pain  that  beat  at  her  head  like  a  hammer  and 
sawed  its  way  in  jerking  descent  to  the  tips  of  her  little 
upcurling  toes,  mere  existence  seemed  a  struggle  the  re 
verse  of  laziness.  But  here  mere  existence  was  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world.  To  lie  in  the  pleasant  sunlight  with  a 
soft  pillow  under  every  aching  throb  and  to  watch  the  white 
curtains  flutter  —  she  would  be  content  to  do  that  forever. 
The  window  was  open  a  full  dozen  inches,  and  the  room  was 
filled  with  a  soft,  warm,  salty  breeze.  The  breeze  made  the 
carnations  on  the  wall-paper  nod  their  heads;  they  were 
so  big,  so  much  bigger  than  any  gardener  could  possibly 


140  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

achieve,  no  wonder  that  the  slender  stalks  were  inadequate. 
A  bowl  of  real  ones  stood  on  the  dressing-table;  Emily 
liked  to  see  them  reflected  in  the  mirror. 

The  nurse,  a  young  woman  whose  tight  print  dress  seemed 
to  incase  an  unresisting  surface,  found  her  a  rather  trouble 
some  charge.  She  would  lie  for  hours  without  stirring, 
and  then  suddenly  demand  the  most  surprising  things  — 
a  pink  bow  to  be  fastened  on  her  nightgown  in  the  place 
of  the  blue  one  which  already  adorned  it,  or  a  book  —  when 
reading  was  forbidden  her  —  to  be  placed  by  her  side. 
The  books  she  most  demanded  were  her  own  "Cuckoo" 
and  a  translated  edition  of  the  "Discourses"  of  Epictetus. 
They  bridged  the  gulf  of  the  years  as  best  they  could,  the 
the  scarlet  and  the  scholarly  cheek  by  jowl;  and  whether 
it  was  the  contrast  that  amused  her  or  some  resemblance 
indiscernible  to  the  layman,  the  nurse  did  not  think  to 
ask.  Bathing  the  brow  from  which  these  fancies  emanated 
was  more  in  her  line.  Miss  Marden  had  the  virtue  of  being 
very  much  interested  in  her  profession;  she  regarded  the 
life,  and  sometimes  the  death,  which  came  under  her  notice 
entirely  from  the  professional  standpoint.  But  she  took  it  off 
—  this  standpoint  —  to  a  certain  extent  at  least,  when  she 
took  off  her  print  dress  and  went  out  every  afternoon  at  four, 
the  apotheosis  of  the  tailor-made,  to  see  the  sights  and  get 
the  air  on  the  board  walk.  Emily  looked  at  her  then  with 
envious  eyes ;  she  wondered  —  the  thought  struggled  with 
the  pain  in  her  head  —  why  it  was  that  those  whose  vocation 
it  is  to  care  for  the  sick  should  always  be  so  inhumanly 
strong.  They  were  strong  physically,  but  the  constant 
contact  with  disease  gave  them  mentally  a  kind  of  bias; 
it  was  only  a  great  one,  like  Dr.  Jeffries,  who  could  keep 


NATURE  141 

his  soundness  perfect.  It  was  all  nonsense,  the  ennoble 
ment  of  a  ministry  to  the  suffering ;  the  suffering  dragged 
their  servitors  down  to  their  level,  and  their  level  was  low 
—  Emily  hated  it  with  the  passionate  hatred  of  one  who 
herself  has  trod  it.  She  welcomed  the  coming  of  her  be- 
ruffled  little  maid  who  sat  with  her  when  Miss  Harden  was 
out. 

It  came  to  Emily  with  a  sense  of  shock  that  she  was  never 
left  alone.  There  was  always  some  one,  either  the  maid 
or  Miss  Marden,  and  failing  these,  one  of  the  servants  of 
the  hotel.  What  did  they  think  she  would  do?  Get  up 
and  clamber  out  of  that  sunny,  curtained  window?  Her 
imaginative  curiosity  had  got  the  better  of  her,  and  she  had 
asked  what  was  below.  There  was  nothing  below  for  fifty 
feet,  and  then  a  hard  gravelled  path.  The  time  was  near, 
she  hoped,  when  she  would  reach  the  gravelled  path  in 
the  usual  way,  by  the  elevator;  but  till  then  she  could 
very  well  not  bother  with  it.  She  would  have  to  wait 
till  the  carnations  on  the  wall-paper  ceased  to  nod  their 
heads.  Miss  Marden  talked  of  that  halcyon  period  and 
explained,  also,  the  complications  of  the  rolling  chair.  The 
rolling  chair  was  an  institution  for  which  Ocean  City  was 
famed;  a  giant  baby  carriage  or  go-cart  made  of  wicker, 
its  especial  point  of  beauty  was  its  lack  of  unpleasant 
invalid  associations  —  its  use  didn't  stamp  one;  it  was  at 
Ocean  City  universal. 

But  she  was  very  content  to  let  the  future,  with  its  rolling 
chairs  and  its  gravelled  paths  and  its  closer  view  of  the 
Mother  of  Mysteries,  take  care  of  itself.  The  future  was 
almost  as  blank  as  were  the  pads  of  yellow  paper  which 
she  would  send  to  town  for  the  moment  Dr.  Jeffries  recov- 


142  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

ered  from  his  prejudice  against  work.  She  realized  dimly 
that  at  present  the  doctor's  prejudice  might  be  founded  on 
common  sense  —  her  brain  creaked  on  its  hinges;  her 
ideas  were  like  garments  bulging  from  the  sides  of  a  smashed 
trunk,  and  came  and  went  in  struggle  and  consciousness. 
But  later  the  doctor's  prejudice  would  be  sheer  quackery. 
The  blank  yellow  pads  were  the  only  things  the  future  held 
for  her;  the  rest  of  it  was  all  on  a  level  with  the  present 
—  all  sky  and  sun  and  soft  salt  breeze,  and  blankness. 
The  blankness  was  relieved  by  the  shadowy  figure  of  a 
problem  —  the  great  one  of  money.  It  might  mean  a 
return  to  Hornmouth  and  an  acceptance  of  her  Cousin 
Laura's  invitation  to  live  with  her.  The  blank  yellow 
pads  were  the  ladder  over  that  wall. 

Mrs.  Parrish  had  learned  of  her  cousin's  illness  only 
through  the  medium  of  her  morning  paper;  but  she  had  the 
reprehensible  feminine  method  of  arriving  at  conclusions, 
and  her  jump  this  time  landed  her  at  a  connecting  link 
between  that  and  her  son's  departure.  Emily  ill  and  Ralph 
in  Europe.  She  scented  a  climax  in  the  phenomenon  which 
she  neither  condoned,  approved,  nor  understood.  An  ani 
mated  broomstick  —  an  inactive  spider  —  giving  what 
strength  she  had  to  a  field  of  endeavor  which  held  for  him 
not  the  slightest  interest,  it  would  seem  as  though  the 
young  man  who  would  be  fairly  loyal  for  a  period  of  years 
must  have  an  ulterior  motive.  Mrs.  Parrish's  New  England 
morality  toyed  with  that ;  but  it  had  its  ramifications,  — 
this  morality,  —  and  she  joined  her  son  in  his  dislike  of  the 
implication  of  wedding-cake. 

She  was  spending  the  winter  months  with  some  friends 
in  Boston;  and  when  the  news  of  Emily's  condition  had 


NATURE  143 

reached  her,  her  conscience,  which,  like  her  morality,  had 
its  ramifications,  put  her  aboard  the  first  train  for  New 
York.  There  had  been  nothing  for  her  to  do,  however; 
she  found  the  apartment  in  the  late  thirties  teeming  with 
doctors  and  nurses,  and  in  their  midst  a  guarded,  darkened 
room.  By  her  right  of  relationship  a  package  of  letters 
had  been  intrusted  to  her  charge;  she  was  to  do  with  them 
as  she  thought  best  —  read  them  —  keep  them  —  destroy 
them.  She  had  used  her  judgment;  but  there  was  one 
over  the  disposition  of  which  her  judgment  had  retired, 
defeated.  Her  conscience  had  its  ramifications,  and  the 
letter  whose  superscription  bore  her  son's  handwriting  she 
had  infamously  bribed  the  beruffled  maid  to  take  to  Emily. 
It  was  against  all  rules  and  all  precedents.  In  doing  so  she 
had  endangered  her  own  as  well  as  her  cousin's  life.  It 
was  the  sort  of  thing  that  one  might  expect  of  a  gambler, 
but  hardly  of  the  first  lady  of  Hornmouth.  But  the  first 
lady  of  Hornmouth  came  at  it  by  way  of  her  conscience, 
with  perhaps  a  touch  of  that  venturesome  spirit  with  which 
her  ancestors  had  embarked  for  a  new  world  on  the  over 
crowded  Mayflower. 

ii 

As  Miss  Harden  entered  the  room,  Emily  thrust  some 
thing  out  of  sight  among  the  closed  pages  of  Epictetus; 
but  the  action  had  been  too  wavering  to  escape  that  argus- 
eyed  young  woman's  notice.  She  came  over  to  the  side  of 
the  bed.  "You  know  you  mustn't  write." 

"I  wasn't  writing." 

"You  mustn't  read,  either."  She  turned  to  the  beruffled 
maid.  "You  may  go  now;  I'll  stay  with  Miss  Stedman 


144  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

till  dinner."  She  waited  for  the  maid  to  leave.  "Just 
think  what  Dr.  Jeffries  would  say  if  he  knew  you  were  dis 
obeying  orders!  What  would  he  think  of  me?  You  see 
how  it  places  me  !  I'm  here  to  get  you  well,  and  if  I  don't . . . 
Why,  I  was  thinking  only  yesterday  that  I  would  let  you 
lie  on  the  sofa  for  an  hour ;  but  if  you  disobey  the  doctor's 
orders,  you  won't  be  strong  enough !  Oh,  well,  we'll  say 
no  more  about  it." 

Emily  was  unexpected.  "I'm  not  sure  that  I  want  to 
say  no  more  about  it." 

Miss  Harden  waited,  slowly  smoothing  the  crisp  folds  of 
her  dress. 

Emily  watched  her.  "  I  was  reading  a  letter  —  a  letter 
from  my  cousin." 

"But  you're  not  supposed  to  receive  letters." 

"I  received  this  one  before  I  left  town." 

"Through  what  means?" 

"Through  his  mother.  My  cousin's  mother — "she 
answered  Miss  Marden's  stare. 

The  stare  crystallized  to  hardness.  "That  was  scarcely 
the  thing  for  her  to  have  done." 

"Pass  in  a  forbidden  communication  across  the  lines? 
I  suppose  not ;  but  my  cousin's  mother  is  a  very  remark 
able  woman." 

"You're  speaking  of  the  cousin  who's  in  Europe?" 

"Yes." 

"I've  heard  you  mention  him."  Miss  Marden  put  out 
her  hand.  —  "  Don't  you  think  that  I  better  take  his  letter 
and  keep  it  for  you  till  you're  strong  enough  to  have 
it?" 

"What  do  you  think's  in  it?" 


NATURE  145 

"Why,  I  haven't  the  slightest  idea!  Come  —  let  me 
put  it  away." 

The  closed  pages  of  Epictetus  were  held  firm.  "Ah,  no, 
I  won't  let  you  put  it  away;  but  wouldn't  you  like  me  to 
read  it  to  you?" 

Miss  Harden  allowed  the  strangeness  of  her  patient's 
offer  to  sink  into  her  mind.  It  was  repeated,  "Wouldn't 
you?" 

"  If  you  care  to  —  if  you'll  then  let  me  put  it  away — " 

"  I'll  then  let  you  tear  it  up  !  I've  finished  with  it.  You 
see  you  found  it  out  too  late.  I  know  its  disturbing  con 
tents  through  and  through." 

"I  should  think  you  would!"  The  pages  of  Epictetus 
had  given  up  their  treasure  and  Miss  Marden  held  aloft  a 
paper  as  worn  and  as  crumpled  as  the  one  presented  to 
Emily  by  the  elevator  boy  on  the  eve  of  her  illness. 

"  There.  Now,  if  you'll  bring  over  a  chair  and  sit  down ! 
Suppose  that  you  read  it  to  me." 

"You're  sure  you  wish  it?" 

"  Quite  sure.    Now  begin." 

Miss  Marden  read  through  with  unction  the  elaboration 
of  the  steamship  letter-head;  she  read  the  date,  felt  in  her 
hand  the  thin  foreign  paper,  and  then  turned  to  Emily  half 
apologetically.  "It  begins,  'My  own  dearest  Emmy'  —  " 

"  I  know  how  it  begins.     Goon." 

"As  you  say  — 

" '  MY  OWN  DEAREST  EMMY  :  If  you  will  be  out  when  I 
call  you  up,  how  am  I  to  see  you?  How,  rather,  am  I 
to  hear  your  sharp  little  voice  at  the  other  end  of  the  wire, 
and  how  are  you  to  hear  mine  ?  I  am  off  —  you'll  never 


146  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

guess  —  to  Europe.  Furs,  furs,  furs.  I'll  bring  you  a 
collar  to  prove  that  I'm  speaking  the  truth  and  to  match 
your  big  muff.  This  isn't  a  bribe  like  the  presents  which 
the  husbands  in  the  farces  give  their  wives  when  they've 
come  home  late.  Besides,  I  shall  be  back  before  you  know 
I'm  gone.  My  going's  not  a  matter  of  my  own  choosing; 
but  I  need  hardly  tell  you  that.  To  stay  at  home  and 
worship  at  your  little  feet  —  even  to  eat  your  wedding-cake 
—  would  any  man  in  his  senses  leave  ? 

"  'Write  me  at  the  Paris  branch;  I  shall  be  there  most  of 
the  time.  This  must  go  by  the  pilot. 

"  '  Ever  your  cousin, 
"'R.  L.  P. 

" '  Here  I  throw  my  reputation  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven 
and  write  ten  crosses  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  with  the 
usual  significance  of  crosses.  You  see,  with  so  many  miles 
of  blue  water  between,  you  can't  object.  The  advantage 
is  unfair.'" 

There  was  a  silence  broken  only  by  the  sharp  bank-note 
crackle  of  the  letter  which  Miss  Marden  folded  and  refolded. 
It  wasn't  until  she  had  finished  her  self-appointed  task  that 
she  asked  the  question  uppermost  in  her  mind,  "When 
are  you  to  be  married?" 

"I'm  not  engaged." 

"Oh." 

"  I  suppose  you  think  that  makes  it  still  queerer  that  I  had 
you  read  my  cousin's  letter." 

"Why,  not  at  all."  Miss  Marden  had  seen  queerer  things 
than  that.  "  It's  pleasant  to  feel  that  you  have  a  devoted 


NATURE  147 

young  man  even  if  you're  not  engaged  to  him,  and  your 
having  me  read  his  letter  is  a  way  of  telling  me  all  about  it." 

"I  suppose  it  seems  queer  to  you  that  I  should  have  a 
young  man?" 

"  Why,  not  at  all.  But  don't  you  think  that  you  better 
try  to  sleep?" 

"  I'm  not  sleepy.  Give  me  the  letter."  Emily  took  it 
and  tore  it  with  surprising  strength  into  small  pieces.  "  It's 
not  the  kind  of  thing  that  if  I  die  I  should  like  left  behind 
me,"  she  explained  her  action. 

"But  you're  not  going  to  die !" 

"  Not  now  —  of  course  —  but  some  day  when  I've  done 
all  the  things  I've  planned." 

"Won't  you  try  to  sleep?" 

Emily  gathered  up  the  torn  bits  of  paper  into  the  palm 
of  her  hand,  picking  them  from  the  slippery  silk  surface  of 
the  bedquilt.  "  It's  plain  how  much  in  love  with  me  he  is, 
and  how  he  hated  leaving."  She  brought  out  the  lie 
bravely;  it  was  a  lie  that  Ralph  Parrish  would  have  had 
her  take  for  truth,  but  it  was  too  late.  She  remembered 
one  thing  vividly,  like  the  screech  of  a  whistle  in  the  midst 
of  a  fog,  the  voice  of  the  person  in  authority  at  the  firm 
of  wholesale  fur  dealers  telling  her  that  Mr.  Parrish  had 
offered  to  go.  Emily  could  have  stood  anything  but  that. 
The  torn  bits  of  paper  in  her  hand  were  so  much  evidence 
of  his  hypocrisy.  Her  own  almost  equalled  it,  however, 
as  she  turned  to  Miss  Marden  her  bright,  light  eyes.  "If 
he  had  his  way,  I  should  be  in  a  position  always  to  accom 
pany  him  on  his  fur-dealing  journeys." 

"That  you're  not  going  to  be  married  isn't  his  fault? 
Well,  that's  very  nice." 


148  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

Emily  had  buried  her  face  in  her  pillow ;  and  Miss  Mar- 
den,  after  a  moment's  staring  out  into  the  rapidly  increasing 
dusk,  drew  the  shades  and  turned  on  the  most  distant  and 
most  protected  light.  She  sat  down,  presenting  to  Emily's 
tear-blurred  vision  a  neat  striped  gingham  back,  and 
brought  forth  from  her  deep  pocket  a  little  bag  of  sewing. 
She  was  soon  deftly  at  work  upon  a  garment  so  minute  that 
it  would  seem  to  the  inexperienced  eye  quite  useless.  It 
was  to  add  to  the  comfort  and  happiness  of  a  newly  arrived 
niece  —  a  niece  whose  position  as  the  fifth  child  of  a  not 
too  affluent  father  made  additions  to  her  wardrobe  most 
welcome. 

m 

Emily  was  in  the  smooth  state  of  convalescence,  not  well 
enough  to  be  irritable,  but  quite  well  enough  to  be  immensely 
pleased  at  being  brought  back  to  life.  She  took,  in  fact, 
an  almost  morbid  interest  in  her  fellow-creatures.  She 
sat  about  for  whole  days  in  the  parlors  of  the  big  hotel, 
with  the  inevitable  novel  and  the  inevitable  light  wrap, 
and  it  was  a  choice  between  her  fellow-creatures  and  the 
Mother  of  Mysteries.  The  Mother  of  Mysteries  alternately 
roared  and  purred.  Emily  wasn't  yet  quite  strong  enough 
to  like  her  —  seeing  her,  as  she  did,  for  the  first  time.  Her 
gaze  turned  inward,  toward  her  fellow-creatures;  and  they, 
scattered  at  random,  a  sparse  dozen  occupants  of  the  sun 
parlor's  two  hundred  and  fifty  cushioned  wicker  chairs, 
were  mostly  an  unedifying  spectacle.  Women,  with  here 
and  there  what  Mr.  Meredith  calls  '  a  certain  limp  order  of 
men';  and  children,  pathetic  and  thin-legged,  who,  wrapped 
and  muffled  beyond  all  semblance  of  humanity,  played  in 


NATUKE  149 

the  health-giving  sand :  these  were  the  inhabitants  of  Ocean 
City,  the  fellow-creatures  that  were  given  Emily  to  interest 
herself  in. 

But  many  people  in  a  small  place  are  nothing  in  point  of 
constant  contact  to  few  people  in  a  large  place.  The  sparse 
dozen  occupants  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  chairs  day  by 
day  close  in  their  ranks.  Otherwise  their  sense  of  isolation 
turns  more  and  more  to  a  sense  of  impending  doom.  They 
feel  like  the  early  comers  at  the  theatre,  and  the  great  blank 
curtain  and  the  patches  of  empty  seats  are  the  repeated  first 
note  of  the  dramatic  suspense.  Ocean  City  in  midwinter, 
with  its  long,  clean  stretches  of  emptiness,  its  bright,  hard 
sunlight,  its  wonderfully  successful  escape  from  the  odor 
of  carbolic,  was  a  great  machine  prepared  to  take  care  — 
as  hotel  men  say  —  of  thousands,  and  in  February  the 
thousands  had  not  yet  arrived.  There  were  other  elements 
besides  the  sea  which  seemed  harnessed  to  the  uses  of 
civilization;  and  civilization  had  gone  farther  than  that; 
had,  for  once,  gone  beyond  human  need.  Nothing  had 
ever  before  been  so  swept  and  garnished  to  the  point  of  being 
positively  cleared  for  action.  And  then  action  was  the  one 
thing  forbidden. 

That  is  the  corner-stone  of  Ocean  City's  success  —  the 
preparation  for  action  denied.  It  creates  energy  and  then 
stores  it  away;  the  pressure  of  strength  becomes  higher  and 
higher.  It's  the  place  beyond  all  others  —  this  much-per 
fected  civilization  —  in  which  to  become  a  vegetable ;  the 
place  in  which  that  difficult  process  stands  most  robbed 
of  its  difficulties. 

But  for  Emily  this  didn't  entirely  hold  good.  She  had 
resources  within  herself.  Day  by  day,  with  her  returning 


150  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

strength  and  her  stiffening  fibre,  her  gaze  turned  more  and 
more  inward  till  even  her  fellow-creatures  were  left  far 
without.  They  seemed  to  do  nothing  but  sort  over  their 
various  ragbags  of  ailments,  and  Emily's  own  was  so  very 
much  fuller  that  she  didn't  consider  theirs  worthy  of  a 
single  inquiring  finger.  But  ailments  were,  at  their  most 
numerous,  stupid;  and  Emily's  inward  gaze  was  directed 
rather  at  those  parts  of  her  make-up  which  were  unimpaired. 
So  far  she  admitted  that  she'd  made  a  mess  of  it ;  but  there 
was  always  the  future.  On  the  title-page  of  the  "Dis 
courses  "  of  Epictetus  was  a  translated  quotation  from 
Marcus  Aurelius :  "  Consider  thyself  to  be  dead  and  to  have 
completed  thy  life  up  to  the  present  time ;  and  live  accord 
ing  to  Nature  the  remainder  which  is  allowed  thee." 

If  one  excepts  the  usual  modern  association  of  the  word 
'nature,'  that  was — after  all  —  the  lesson  she  had  learned. 
She  knew  that  in  her  own  way  she  had  had  Ralph  Parrish ; 
and  now,  in  spite  of  a  million  'Dearest  Emmys'  and  ten 
million  crosses,  she  knew  that  she  had  lost  him.  She  had 
never  before  realized  how  much  her  possession  of  him  had 
been  a  part  of  herself.  Now  that  part  was  necessarily  dead. 
It  had  been  buried  decently  and  with  ceremony  during 
the  weeks  which  she  had  spent  upon  her  back,  propped  up 
with  pillows.  She  could  look  upon  its  grave  with  coldness, 
and  her  enervated  fancy  even  summoned  to  it  a  certain 
mild  disgust.  Her  disgust  was  more  for  what  might  have 
been  than  for  what  had  actually  occurred.  There  had 
occurred  so  very  little.  It  would  formerly  have  been  char 
acteristic  of  her  to  have  regretted  that.  But  now,  with  her 
new  exaggerated  sense  of  moral  values,  she  was  glad  that  the 
grave  covered  so  few  rotting  bones.  Graves  of  that  sort 


NATURE  151 

were  usually  well  filled.  But  it  was  a  sort  that  few  people, 
looking  at  the  pale  little  woman  with  the  hollows  under  the 
eyes  and  the  drawn  formation  about  the  mouth,  would  have 
suspected  her  of  possessing  at  all.  She  was  hardly  the  type 
of  the  unhappy  heroine  of  romance.  Those  late  bugbears 
—  the  spinster  look,  the  invalid's  shawl,  the  stiff-starched 
clothes — were  discovered  to  have  virtues.  She  would  have 
liked  to  procure  the  rope  shirt  which  had  once  been 
little  David  Barlow's  ideal  of  a  garment.  She  had  blindly, 
and  without  being  able  exactly  to  track  it  down,  the  desire 
to  immolate  herself  upon  a  sacrificial  altar,  the  instinct  to 
purge  herself  of  her  imaginary  sins.  And  it  wasn't  because 
she  believed  in  a  hereafter  and  eternal  damnation.  The 
pendulum  had  swung,  and  she  was  clinging  to  it  as  firmly 
as  when  it  had  been  at  the  opposite  side  of  the  clock.  As 
she  looked  across  at  this  opposite  side,  the  decent  burial  and 
the  newly  made  grave  didn't  seem  to  her  a  sufficient  barrier. 
It  was  the  kind  of  soul  climax  which  in  Catholic  countries 
fills  the  convents. 

The  large,  dim  interior  of  a  church,  with  incense  and 
candles  and  the  organ  loud  and  low  in  the  midst  of  the  quiet, 
and  the  robed  figures  of  priests  whose  seeming  smallness 
made  significant  the  insignificance  of  man  in  the  presence 
of  the  Infinite  —  even  that  palliation  was  outside  her  grasp. 
She  had  the  misfortune  to  have  been  brought  up  in  an  at 
mosphere  of  science,  —  in  the  distant  worship  of  an  abstract 
moral  ideal,  —  when  an  ideal  so  concrete  as  to  verge  on 
imagery  would  have  suited  her  best.  The  strain  of  bar 
barism  which  her  cousin  had  been  clever  enough  to  decipher 
would  only  have  had  to  be  carried  a  little  farther,  and  she 
would  have  found  nothing  unsuitable  hi  the  exorcising  of 


152  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

the  evil  spirit  by  the  beating  of  tom-toms.  As  it  was,  she 
would  have  felt  securer  in  some  manner  of  protected  and 
sanctified  ground.  The  abstract  ideal  left  her  cold.  The 
egotist's  God  is  within  himself,  and  with  her  the  greater 
part  of  that  was  buried.  She  was  left  as  religionless  as  she 
was  rudderless.  She  felt  very  strongly  that  she  had  yet 
to  find  herself,  and  at  her  age  she  felt  that  it  was  time. 
Even  her  faith  in  the  future  tottered.  It  wasn't  so  all  be 
fore  her  as  she  had  supposed.  What  guarantee  had  she 
that  that '  remainder  which  was  allowed  her '  would  be  any 
less  wasted  than  what  had  gone  before?  Wasted  — 
she  used  the  word  with  all  the  emphasis,  all  the  fluency, 
which  had  formerly  gone  to  the  service  of  "Mrs.  Dallow- 
field." 

She  had  suddenly,  in  the  very  different  surroundings  of 
the  hotel  sun  parlor,  the  sharp  recollection  of  a  small,  shabby 
room  with  a  table  laid  with  a  white  cloth  and  roses  and  a 
student's  lamp.  She  remembered  the  reddish  amber  color 
of  the  mixture  in  the  cut-glass  pitcher,  and  the  green  leaves 
floating  through  it  like  the  fishes  seen  through  the  glass 
sides  of  an  aquarium.  When  Dr.  Guthrie  filled  his  tumbler, 
they  came  out  like  fishes  over  a  waterfall.  Dr.  Guthrie, 
she  remembered,  had  filled  his  tumbler  uncommonly  often. 
He  drank  her  health  —  the  festivity  had  been  in  honor  of 
her  fifteenth  birthday  —  and  the  health  of  the  college  year, 
then  drawing  to  a  close.  Dr.  Guthrie's  speech  had  been 
the  climax  of  the  occasion :  "  When  the  day  comes  for  us 
to  answer  to  our  good  Lord  for  the  use  we  have  made  of 
our  sojourn  upon  this  earth,  we  may  say  —  we  may  say, 
that  for  us  this  earth  has  been  merely  as  the  winding  pattern 
of  a  Persian  carpet  —  for  us  nature  has  been  but  so  much 


NATURE  153 

material  for  our  thought.  We  have  wasted  our 'lives  in 
the  pursuit  of  unpursuable  things  — " 

It  came  back  to  her  with  sufficient  clearness,  the  impres 
sion  that  phrase  had  made  upon  her.  It  was  surely  not  in 
pursuit  of  unpursuable  things  that  her  own  life  had  been 
wasted  —  in  pursuit,  rather,  of  what  Dr.  Guthrie  had  called 
the  damnably  normal.  And  the  damnably  normal  hadn't 
been  with  her  a  success. 

The  apartment  in  the  late  thirties,  which  was  like  nothing 
so  much  as  the  inside  of  a  milliner's  bonnet  box,  typified 
to  her  the  thing  which  another  turn  in  the  road  might  have 
made  wholly  hers.  Fate  had  thrust  her  out  of  the  way  of 
the  engine,  but  its  hot  passing  breath  was  still  in  her  face. 
The  thing  she  had  missed  was  the  damnably  normal;  for 
her  it  was  that  which  had  proved  unpursuable.  She 
remembered  the  boy  Ralph  sitting  beside  her,  big  and  blond 
and  silent,  slowly  consuming  his  second  portion  of  her 
birthday  cake  —  not  wedding-cake,  this  time,  but  wonder 
fully  like  it  in  construction.  She  supposed  that  he  was  a 
part  of  the  nature  to  which  the  learned  doctor  referred. 

She  had  once  called  the  big  room  at  Hornmouth  a  desert 
swept  by  a  cyclone.  It  had  been  quite  as  impersonal  — 
quite  as  abstract  as  that.  As  abstract  as  the  immortal 
mind  of  R.  H.  Stedman  and  the  secrets  of  the  less  immortal 
body  which  were  so  bound  up  with  it  that  even  when  R.  H. 
Stedman  died  and  the  metal  tables  and  the  pink  masses  in 
the  glass  jars  were  taken  away,  the  room  still  held  its  former 
suggestion.  That  had  been  the  second  rising  of  the  curtain, 
the  period  of  "The  Cuckoo,"  the  tireless  struggle  to  escape, 
like  the  struggle  of  an  animal  caught  in  a  trap.  Then  came 
the  late  thirties,  with  celebrity  and  Ralph  Parrish  and 


154  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"Mrs.  Dallowfield."  In  looking  back,  "Mrs.  Dallowfield" 
occupied  an  unfairly  inconspicuous  place  in  the  procession. 
"Mrs.  Dallowfield  "  was  the  fine  unfinished  flower  of  genius, 
the  glow  from  the  living  coal.  It  was  "Mrs.  Dallowfield" 
who  consecrated  the  apartment  in  the  late  thirties,  conse 
crated  it  as  she  consecrated  Emily's  possession  of  Ralph 
Parrish,  that  part  of  herself  whose  fresh-made  grave  she 
could  regard  so  dispassionately.  It  was  the  danger  of 
graves,  the  things  which  might  be  accidentally  buried  in 
them.  Emily's  genius  was  in  its  very  nature  elusive  —  it 
might  have  slipped  in  along  with  the  falling  earth.  That 
part  of  herself  concerned  with  the  possession  of  Ralph 
Parrish  was  so  awkwardly  mixed  with  "Mrs.  Dallowfield," 
and  "Mrs.  Dallowfield"  was  the  genius. 

But  'the  remainder  which  was  allowed  her'  was  to  be 
consecrated  in  a  new  way.  This  was  the  new  act  —  again 
the  theatrical  metaphor  —  the  new  rise  of  the  curtain. 
Emily  looked  about  at  the  empty  chairs.  The  act  had 
evidently  not  yet  begun.  It  had  a  setting  as  impersonal  — 
as  abstract  —  as  the  big  room  at  Hornmouth.  This  was 
in  its  favor,  for  the  late  thirties  had  been  a  triumph  of  the 
personal,  the  concrete.  Her  little  apartment  had  been  called 
'bijou'  until  the  decorated  walls  must  have  rung  with  the 
adjective  —  'the  bijou  expression  of  her  own  bijou  person 
ality/  And  then  the  generously  proportioned  Ralph  had 
pulled  this  intensely  bijou  habitation  down  about  his  ears. 
She  would  never  go  back  there. 

Far  better  than  that  was  this  polished,  swept  expanse, 
with  the  empty  chairs  and  the  sense  of  blankness.  In  one 
corner  there  were  a  pertinent  number  of  ladies  playing 
bridge.  They  did  nothing  to  disturb  the  quiet;  they 


NATURE  155 

barely  moved  a  muscle  of  their  dull,  white  faces,  and  their 
speech  —  hushed  and  spasmodic  —  sounded  remarkably 
unlike  human  intercourse.  As  Emily  watched  them  she 
wondered  if  it  was  the  real  end  and  aim  of  this  highly 
perfected  civilization  that  dull,  white-faced  ladies  should 
play  bridge  undisturbed  and  another,  who  didn't  play 
bridge,  should  repair  ravages  done  to  a  system  hardly 
worth  repairing.  Perhaps  the  coming  crowds  were  a  pleas 
ant  fiction,  a  fairy  story  which  the  owners  of  this  marvel 
lous  place  amused  themselves  by  telling.  The  owners  were 
probably  a  dignified  group,  whose  fortunes  were  already 
made,  and  Ocean  City  was  a  harmless  fad  of  their  declining 
years  —  as  some  men  have  greenhouses  or  model  farms. 
Usually,  however,  the  owners  of  such  places  spend  a  good 
deal  of  their  time  in  them ;  and  in  February,  save  for  flurries 
of  week-end  activity,  Ocean  City  was  singularly  free  from 
the  presence  of  the  uninjured  male.  The  injured  were  there, 
a  limp  little  handful,  who  evinced  a  tendency  to  hide  away 
from  the  possible  sight  of  their  more  fortunate  fellows. 
Occasionally  a  plaided  cap  and  a  steamer  rug  might  be  seen 
in  the  sunny  recess  of  a  piazza,  and  in  passing  the  stair 
which  led  down  to  the  billiard  room,  there  might  sometimes 
be  distinguished  the  sharp  click  of  ivory. 

Emily,  far  from  objecting  to  this  lack  of  masculine 
society,  rather  rejoiced  in  it.  She  shouldn't  much  care  if 
the  glimpse  of  plaided  cap  and  steamer  rug  was  as  near  as 
the  opposite  sex  should  ever  again  be  to  her.  And  men, 
shorn  of  their  strength,  never  seemed  quite  like  men  to  her ; 
her  ideal  of  manhood  was  so  bound  up  with  her  ideal  of 
Ralph  Parrish,  and  he  —  shorn  of  his  strength  —  one's 
wildest  imagination  couldn't  compass  it.  The  plaided 


156  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

cap  and  the  steamer  rug  were  symbols  of  limpness  and 
injury ;  in  fact,  it  was  presupposed  that  any  man  coming  to 
Ocean  City  in  February  for  a  protracted  stay,  branded  him 
self  as  a  non-combatant  —  one  of  the  wounded  carried  in 
the  carts  on  a  march,  thrown  in  haphazard  among  the 
impedimenta. 

There  was  a  climax  in  the  game  of  bridge.  The  players' 
voices  rose  to  a  compelling  pitch,  and  Emily  turned  her 
head.  As  she  did  so  her  attention  was  caught  by  a  figure 
whose  chief  claim  to  it  was  that  it  appeared  to  have  arisen 
out  of  nothingness.  She  could  have  given  her  oath  that  a 
moment  ago  there  had  been  no  one  there.  She  had  been 
looking  at  the  bridge  players  and  thinking  of  them,  and  then 
her  eyes  and  thoughts  had  wandered,  —  or  become  more 
concentrated,  —  and  now  there  it  was,  halfway  between 
herself  and  the  card-table,  directly  in  her  line  of  vision  — 
the  seated  figure  of  a  young  man  reading  a  newspaper. 

His  back  was  towards  her  and  his  bent  head  was  turned 
away ;  but  in  spite  of  this,  the  thing  —  after  the  mystery  of 
his  presence  —  which  most  struck  her  was  his  utter  lack 
of  anything  approaching  limpness.  He  gave,  for  all  his 
stillness,  an  impression  of  extreme  alertness,  and  the  two 
attributes  were  not  generally  so  markedly  combined.  Emily 
experienced  the  same  slight  shock  with  which  she  might 
have  come  face  to  face,  around  a  corner,  with  a  more  than 
ordinarily  lifelike  group  of  waxworks.  The  uncanny 
stillness  and  the  uncanny  alertness  and  the  distinctness  so 
defined  as  to  suggest  brittleness,  —  the  edges  of  his  coat,  she 
noticed,  were  very  sharp  and  dark  in  the  morning  sunlight, 
—  the  idea,  unmistakably  conveyed,  of  an  exceedingly 
clever  marionette :  all  these  phenomena  were  of  a  character 


NATURE  157 

to  hold  the  attention  which  the  apparent  suddenness  of 
the  young  man's  arrival  had  originally  caught.  Emily 
stared  at  him  much  as  she  had  previously  stared  at  the 
bridge-playing  ladies.  Her  curiosity  —  never  dormant  — 
was  aroused ;  her  interest  in  her  fellow-creatures  expanded 
to  include  him.  She  felt  sorry  for  him  in  spite  of  his  alert 
ness  ;  he  was  so  sharp  and  fine,  and  from  the  thinness  and 
whiteness  of  the  hand  which  was  visible  to  her,  he  might 
have  been  as  ill  as  the  limp  gentlemen  in  the  plaided  caps. 
It  was  just  his  little  inhuman  quality,  which  was  probably 
his  way  of  being  limp,  that  added  to  his  intensely  dramatic 
effect.  He  might  have  lately  passed  through  the  forging, 
tempering  fires  of  the  nether  world,  been  moulded  and 
chiselled  and  set  upon  the  stage  as  a  puppet,  the  labor  pf 
whose  making  mounted  to  extravagance. 

Emily  was  sorry  for  him,  and  she  found  herself  wondering 
what,  if  his  back  were  so  exceptional,  must  be  that  side 
of  him  which  with  cleverly  managed  puppets  is  generally 
most  shown  to  the  audience.  As  if  in  answer  to  her  thought, 
he  folded  his  newspaper  and  rose,  turning  uncertainly. 
She  got  straight  to  her  feet. 

"Why, Mr. Barlow!  " 


CHAPTER  VIII 
L'IMAGINATION  SENTIMENTALE 


"Do  you  suppose  they're  real?" 

"I  don't  know,  I'm  sure;  but  if  they  are,  and  you  want 
them,  it's  an  opportunity  not  to  be  missed." 

"You  know,  real  ones  —  real  moccasins  —  are  the  most 
comfortable  things  in  the  world." 

David  Barlow  and  Emily  were  lingering  in  front  of  a  gayly 
decked  booth  purporting  to  contain  the  handiwork  of  a 
savage  race.  There  were  other  booths  —  the  whole  walk 
was  bordered  with  them  —  but  they  mostly,  at  that  season, 
presented  an  unattractively  blank  exterior ;  they  were  nailed 
up  as  tightly  as  miniature  arks,  as  tightly  as  though  they 
were  about  to  be  launched  in  the  ocean  which  spread  out 
before  them  some  twenty  yards  away.  These  booths  were 
generally  for  rent  or  for  sale,  and  there  showed  through  their 
freshly  painted  surfaces  a  veiled  hint  of  past  owners  — 
past  occupations.  It  was  only  occasionally  that  one  was 
found  ready  for  the  stray  early  worm ;  and  it  seemed  as  if 
even  these  had  arisen  at  the  summons  of  a  false  dawn  —  at 
the  summons  of  the  famous  Ocean  City  air,  which  carried 
with  it  such  a  sense  of  the  coming  spring.  The  booth  where 
the  savage  trinkets  were  displayed  was  the  most  thoroughly 
awake  of  any.  Its  proprietor,  the  trace  in  whose  blood 

158 


L'lM  AGINATION   SENTIMENT  ALE  159 

was  well  emphasized  by  costume,  eyed  the  occasional  passer 
with  an  unflagging  energy.  When  he  found  two  people  who 
bade  fair  to  purchase  some  of  his  most  expensive  wares,  it 
was  an  occasion  to  bring  forth  the  exercise  of  all  his  skill. 
His  price  might  rise,  but  not  to  a  prohibitive  height;  the 
correct  gauging  of  what  would  just  fall  short  of  it  was  a  bit 
of  clairvoyance  not  to  be  despised. 

"  Ver'  fine,  ver'  fine.    Me  sell  many." 

His  hawkish  eye  was  passing  in  rapid  review  from  the 
overcoat  in  the  pockets  of  which  David  Barlow  had  thrust 
his  gloved  hands,  to  the  neat,  strong  shoes  that  incased  that 
young  man's  neat,  strong  feet.  Yes,  he  might  be  rich;  he 
presented  to  the  world  such  an  unrumpled  surface — • 
though  this,  after  all,  might  be  a  quality  inherent  within  him; 
and  the  proprietor  was  accustomed  to  young  men,  who,  if 
they  were  rich,  displayed  it  more  unmistakably.  And  the 
lady  —  one  could  tell  a  great  deal  by  the  lady  —  was  of  an 
inconspicuousness  which  verged  on  the  insignificant.  On 
the  whole,  no  —  David  Barlow  was  adjudged  not  rich. 
The  price  named  was  little  more  than  fair. 

"I'll  take  one  pair,"  said  the  lady,  and  it  was  strangely 
she  who  brought  out  her  purse. 

"Oh,  come !    This  is  my  party  — " 

"Indeed,  no." 

"But  indeed,  yes." 

"I  saw  them  in  the  first  place  —  I  stopped  —  it  is  I  that 
shall  wear  them." 

"  It  would  offend  you  if  I  insisted  ?  " 

"Almost  that." 

"Then  I  can't  see  but  that  I  must  sink  my  own  wishes. 
But  you  surely  won't  mind  if  I  also  buy  moccasins  ?" 


160  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"For  yourself?" 

"No,  for  some  friends  who  —  as  they  aren't  here  —  can't 
very  well  be  so  scrupulous."  He  turned  to  the  proprietor. 
"I'll  take  two  pairs,  and  of  a  larger  size." 

The  hawk  eye  gleamed.  Its  error  was  proved  by  this 
further  prodigality  of  buying,  but  it  might  yet  be  retrieved. 
"The  larger  size  —  they  cost  more." 

Gleam  unexpectedly  met  gleam.     "Oh,  no,  they  don't !" 

"They  cost  more." 

"When  you  gave  the  price,  no  size  was  stipulated." 
Barlow  set  down  his  money  upon  the  counter.  His  gesture 
was  final.  "Take  it  or  not  —  as  you  please  — "  And  then 
to  Emily  —  "I  dislike  being  cheated." 

Emily  presently  returned  to  her  former  contention. 
"You  understand  how  it  is  about  the  moccasins?  You 
see  it's  very  different,  you're  getting  them  to  give  to  friends 
who  aren't  here ;  but  if  I'd  let  you  pay  for  mine,  I  should  feel 
them  on  my  conscience  as  well  as  on  my  feet  every  time  I 
wore  them.  It's  the  principle  of  the  thing,  as  it  was  the 
principle  —  not  the  actual  fifty  cents  —  that  mattered  to 
you  now  about  the  price  of  the  larger  size." 

David  was  carrying  them  under  his  arm  wrapped  in  two 
separate  packages.  He  laughed.  "You're  the  most  con 
scientious  person  I've  ever  seen ;  but,  believe  me,  I  do  under 
stand  your  point !  To  be  really  frank,  isn't  it  partly  their 
being  moccasins,  which  are  nothing  more  or  less  than  bed 
room  slippers,  that  would  make  my  presenting  them  to  you 
a  too  intimate  privilege,  a  kind  of  liberty?" 

"In  a  sense,  yes.  But  you  see  that  doesn't  explain  my 
full  approval  of  your  getting  them  to  present  to  friends 
who  aren't  here." 


I/IMAGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  161 

David  smiled.  "Well,  that  would  hardly  be  your  affair, 
would  it  ?  It  doesn't  somehow  touch  you  so  closely.  And 
besides,  they  wouldn't  be  apt  to  pay  me  for  them  after  I  had 
brought  them  to  them  as  a  gift.  That  would  be  a  shade  of 
conduct  too  fine-spun  even  for  you." 

"No,  my  conscientiousness  doesn't  extend  to  that.  I'm 
afraid  you  think  me  prudish,  but  I  assure  you  I'm  not. 
I  could  even  see  the  view  of  some  one  who  didn't  agree  with 
me  at  all.  For  them,  their  view  might  be  equally  right,  and 
I  shouldn't  think  any  the  less  of  them  for  it." 

"For  them  their  view  is  right." 

Emily  looked  up.     "When  you  say  'them'  ?" 

"To  whom  do  I  refer?  Why,  to  the  people  whose  view 
you  said  you  were  broad  enough  to  see  —  those  whose 
conscientiousness  hasn't  had  an  awakening." 

"It's  a  question,"  said  Emily,  "which  every  woman  has  to 
answer  for  herself." 

"The  question  of  being  presented  with  moccasins?" 

"Yes,  practically  that.  But  I  suppose  you  think  it 
absurd  that  a  little  old  maid  of  a  hundred  years  old  should 
make  such  a  fuss  about  it." 

David  was  thinking  of  something  else,  for  his  reply  was 
hardly  gallant.  He  reached  a  familiar  conclusion  —  "It's 
age  that  counts.  After  a  certain  age  those  things  are  re 
garded  differently.  One  has  a  larger  liberty.  Now  you 
wouldn't  expect  a  woman  of  forty-five  — " 

"But,  my  dear  young  [man,  I'm  not  forty-five!  I'm 
not  even  thirty-five  — " 

"Ah  —  you  misunderstood  me  grossly !  Did  I  ever  say 
you  were?" 

Something  in  his  manner  and  in  the  tone  of  his  voice 


162  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

made  her  look  at  him  harder  than  was  her  habit,  and  the 
result  of  her  investigation  seemed  to  be  shown  by  her  next 
words,  "You're  almost  as  tired  as  I." 

"I,  tired?    Never." 

"It's  like  you  to  deny  it,  and  to  swear  solemnly  that 
you're  not  here  to  rest,  but  for  the  pure  joy  of  it.  But  you 
know  one  doesn't  come  here  for  the  pure  joy  of  it;  you  are 
tired  —  terribly  tired,  and  I'm  afraid  I've  walked  you  off 
your  feet." 

"  What  a  liar  you  make  me  out !  And  isn't  it  I  who  have 
walked  you  off  yours?" 

"Shall  we  return  to  the  days  of  our  infancy?" 

"And  get  ourselves  wheeled  back?  I  think  that  for  me 
that  would  be  rather  ignominious;  but  for  you  — "  David 
broke  in  upon  the  revery  of  a  negro  chairman  who  was  dis 
consolately  gazing  out  to  sea.  "You're  not  engaged?" 
Upon  receiving  the  desired  answer,  he  gave  the  name  of  their 
hotel. 

Emily,  as  she  was  helped  into  her  promptly  gotten  con 
veyance,  tucked  in  and  bundled  up,  had  a  sense  of  having 
been  skilfully  diverted  from  her  object.  There  had  been 
something  which  she  had  been  about  to  say,  —  something 
which  her  thoughts  were  on  the  point  of  leading  her  to,  — 
and  now  for  the  life  of  her  she  couldn't  think  what  it  was. 
She  was  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  David  Barlow  was  a 
remarkable  young  man.  He  was  really  in  no  need  of  pity  — 
in  fact,  he  seemed  rather  startlingly  capable  of  taking  care  of 
himself.  His  acuteness  had  quite  escaped  her  in  New  York ; 
he  had  been  so  worn  and  so  white,  with  his  restless  eyes  and 
the  suggestion  of  pain  which  he  always  had  about  him  —  so 
carried  along  by  the  swift  current  of  some  invisible  exigency. 


I/IMAGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  163 

But  now  he  was  like  a  man  who  rode  it  gallantly,  steering  his 
well-riveted  craft  and  raising  aloft  as  a  protection  from  the 
elements  all  his  shields  —  inhuman  —  acute  —  alert. 

He  was  bent  on  making  himself  agreeable.  His  atten 
tions  shouldn't  end  with  a  care  for  Miss  Stedman's  physical 
welfare.  As  he  walked  by  her  side  he  chatted  gayly,  draw 
ing  her  notice  from  one  to  another  of  the  sights  and  sounds 
about  them  in  a  manner  that  showed  him  at  once  amusing 
and  observant.  "  One  has  it  to  one's  self  now,  but  at  Easter 
—  have  you  ever  been  here  then  ?  —  why,  it's  a  swarming 
mass."  She  would  have  known  that  he  objected  to  a  swarm 
ing  mass.  " Do  you  know,"  he  went  on,  "what  I  call  it  in 
this  country?  Not  the  Great  Unwashed,  but  the  Great 
Newly  Washed.  On  all  sides  are  signs  of  recent  scrubbing, 
recent  brushing,  recent  powdering.  Think  of  their  an 
cestors!" 

"They  don't  suggest  ancestors." 

"  Hardly.  Though  I'm  sure  I  haven't  the  least  right  to 
be  snobbish  about  it." 

"  But  you  have  a  father  — " 

"  Yes,  a  great  one  —  and  a  mother.  Don't  forget  her. 
And  I  have  two  married  sisters ;  but  they're  not  ancestors, 
are  they  ?  Not  even  a  collateral  branch." 

"But  they  will  be  to  your  descendants." 

"Oh,  my  descendants!  —  It's  more  likely,"  said  David, 
"that  I'll  be  to  theirs.  But  we're  becoming  mixed. 
Genealogy  is  evidently  not  our  strong  point.  We  both  have 
fathers, — yours  was  an  even  greater  man  than  mine,  — and 
you've  been  cleverer  than  I,  for  you've  managed  to  shine  for 
yourself  in  the  midst  of  your  father's  light." 

"  I  should  call  it  shining  quite  outside  it,  but  go  on." 


164  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"They  do  illuminate  a  different  area  —  'The  Cuckoo'  and 
'The  History  of  Modern  Physiology';  but  I  should  think 
that  if  anything,  'The  Cuckoo'  illuminated  the  larger." 

"But  with  my  father  it  wasn't  only  the  'History'  — 
think  what  he  himself  contributed  to  that  history  —  the 
extraordinary  discoveries  that  he  himself  made  — " 

"And  you  have  made  none?  'The  Cuckoo'  isn't  based 
on  your  own  direct  investigations?" 

"  If  I  were  not  a  hundred  years  old,  you'd  be  exceedingly 
impertinent." 

David  Barlow  laughed.  "Oh,  if  you're  a  hundred, I'm 
a  hundred  and  fifty !  " 

"  Do  you  know,  I  believe  you  are !  " 

This  conception  of  his  age  was  one  which  he  seemed  wholly 
to  accept.  To  Emily  his  youth  was  always  patent;  it 
colored  his  other  characteristics  and  completed  them;  it  was 
constantly  reminding  her  that  her  own  youth  was  a  thing 
of  the  past,  and  that  however  white  and  worn  David  Barlow 
might  be,  he  nevertheless  still  had  his  chance.  But  he 
took  quite  another  view.  It  seemed  that  he  had  started 
out  with  a  very  definitely  planned  career,  and  then  it  had 
been  cut  short  at  its  inception  by  circumstances  unforeseen 
which  had  kept  him  on  the  other  side  and  prevented  him  from 
finishing  his  term  at  Law  School.  She  remembered  having 
heard  something  of  the  kind  from  his  father,  but  it  wasn't 
yet  clear  to  her  why  he  couldn't  now  go  on  where  he  had 
left  off. 

He  had  thought  of  that,  he  told  her  one  morning  as  they 
sat  together  in  the  great  sun  parlor,  united  by  their  mutual 
lack  of  knowledge  of  bridge  —  he  had  thought  of  that, 
but  his  plans  were  unsettled.  He  might  return  to  college  in 


L'lM AGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  165 

the  autumn,  and  he  might  go  to  Paris  —  the  French  were  a 
wonderful  people  —  wonderful.  It  was  the  difficulty  of 
Barley  Buns,  that  they  removed  the  actual  necessity  for 
labor,  and  unless  a  man  had  a  pretty  definite  aim  —  why, 
Miss  Stedman  must  surely  see  the  tree  it  put  him  up. 

"  You  look  forward  to  a  life  of  idleness  ?" 

"  I  don't  look  forward.  I'm  unsettled.  A  man  needn't 
believe  in  his  life,  you  know,  but  he  has  to  believe  in  his 
work.  And  my  belief  in  mine  has  gone.  I  may  get  it 
back  —  I  don't  know  —  I  may  find  something  else.  There 
are  many  things  —  fine  things  —  open  to  a  rich  man's  son. 
There  are  social  reforms  and  charities,  and  always  the  im 
mense  political  field." 

"  You  bar  the  making  of  more  Barley  Buns  ?" 

"  That  seems  hardly  worth  while,  does  it,  when  there  are 
already  so  many?" 

"Perhaps  not." 

"And  then,"  said  David,  "it's  an  abuse  of  the  gifts  the 
gods  have  given  you,  to  make  Barley  Buns  when  all  these 
other  things  are  open  to  you." 

"But  if  you  let  them  also  go  by  the  board,  is  that  not, 
equally,  an  abuse?" 

"Oh,  but  I  shan't!  I'm  not  settled  yet  —  I  haven't 
decided.  The  law  with  me  was  always  only  to  be  a  stepping- 
stone  to  politics.  It's  the  personal  power  in  politics  that 
used  to  appeal  to  me.  It  doesn't  now."  He  spoke  with 
surety —  "I  don't  seem  to  care.  I  would  be  content  if  I 
had  control  of  myself." 

Emily  had  difficulty  in  exactly  following  him.  "And 
haven't  you?" 

"I  don't  know.  Sometimes  I  think  I  have,  and  some 
times — " 


166  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"Sometimes  don't  think  so  much  about  it !" 

She  seemed  very  much  in  earnest,  and  he  didn't  at  once 
answer  her.  "But  if  I  don't  think  about  it,  how  am  I  to 
know?" 

"The  people  who  have  most  control  of  themselves  are 
usually  the  ones  who  don't  know  —  consciously.  And  they 
are  the  great  forces  of  the  world.  They're  so  tremen 
dously  occupied  that  they  haven't  time  to  bother.  There 
may  be  certain  finenesses  that  they  miss;  and  some  of 
them  are  occupied  with  good  and  some  with  evil ;  but  they 
are  the  great  forces.  All  this  idle  speculation — "  His 
preceptor  indicated  just  how  idle  she  thought  it. 

"What  would  you  have  me  do  ?" 

"Go  on  with  your  work,  even  if  at  the  moment  you  don't 
entirely  believe  in  it." 

"Ah  —  you  do  think  me  worthless  !  But  I  can't  go  on 
with  my  work.  I  don't  think  I've  told  you  that  I'm  expect 
ing  some  friends  here.  They  arrive  next  week,  Monday,  the 
ninth  of  March.  And  if  I  went  on  with  my  work,  I  should 
have  to  leave,  which  I'm  afraid  would  upset  their  plans." 

"And  aren't  your  own  plans  more  important?" 

"There  was  a  time  when  I  thought  so." 


n 

David  Barlow  brought  it  out  so  simply  that  it  hardly 
seemed  a  confession.  His  realization  of  its  true  nature,  and 
consequent  flood  of  embarrassment,  came  later  when  he 
caught  the  expression  in  his  companion's  face  —  an  enlight 
enment  like  the  clearing  away  of  a  fog. 

"That's  true  friendship,"  she  said,  "sacrificing  your  own 


I/IMAGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  167 

convenience  to  the  convenience  of  others.  I  hope  your 
friends  appreciate  it." 

"Oh,  I'm  sure  they  do.  Mrs.  Dench,  especially,  isn't 
apt  to  let  anything  escape  her  observation." 

"And  Mr.  Dench?" 

"  There  is  no  Mr.  Dench.  He's  dead.  The  family 
consists  of  Mrs.  Dench  and  her  daughter.  When  they 
come,  you'll  surely  still  be  here,  won't  you  ?  I  want  you  to 
meet  them;  they're  exceedingly  clever,  and  you're  sure  to  be 
congenial." 

"Is  the  daughter  very  young?"  Emily  asked. 

"Well,  no,  she's  five-feet-nine." 

"Quite  grown  up!" 

"Oh,  quite !  By  which  I  don't  mean  that  she's  what  is 
known  as  '  advanced.'  On  the  contrary,  she's  very  quiet." 

"And  they're  coming  here  next  week —  Are  they 
Americans  ?  "  Emily  couldn't  have  told  why  she  thought 
they  were  anything  else. 

"  At  heart  and  by  birth,  yes.  But  they've  lived  in  Europe 
so  long  —  in  fact,  Jane  was  born  there  —  that  I'm  afraid  at 
first  they'll  feel  a  little  lost." 

"  I  promise  you  I'll  do  my  best  to  make  them  find  them 
selves." 

"  Oh,  if  you  would  —  I  couldn't  imagine  anything  nicer !" 
David's  thanks  showed  him  almost  too  grateful.  But  that 
he  was  aware  of  this  came  out  in  his  very  next  sentence: 
"  Not  that  they  need  a  guide  —  they're  exceptionally  ac 
customed  to  looking  after  their  own  needs.  Wherever  they 
happen  to  be,  they  make  it  seem  in  a  day  as  though  they'd 
lived  there  always.  Mrs.  Dench  arranges  things !  I 
think  it  was  in  Budapest  that  she  took  some  hideous  little 


168  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

rooms  in  a  hideous  little  hotel,  and  at  the  end  of  an  hour, 
why,  you  would  never  have  known  them." 

"  The  hotel  or  the  rooms  ?  " 

"Both,  really;  the  foyer  was  so  crowded  with  waiting 
celebrities,  and  the  rooms  —  they  looked  like  a  royal  suite  ! 
Mr.  Bench,"  David  explained,  "was  in  the  diplomatic 
service." 

"  I  suppose  he  became  very  famous,  and  now  his  family 
are  reaping  the  fruits  of  his  fame.  For  the  daughter  it's  an 
other  case  of  famous  father." 

"I  should  say  it  was  more  a  case  of  famous  mother. 
Ask  the  Princess  Karina  —  she  adores  her." 

"Adoring  her  seems  the  fashion.  And  what  is  it  —  I 
feel  that  I  can  ask  you  because  you've  already  told  me  so 
much  —  what  is  it  especially  about  her  ?  Simply  great 
charm  or  great  intellect  or  what?" 

"  You'll  really  have  to  see  her  for  yourself." 

"It's  her  beauty—" 

"Oh,  no,  it's  Jane  that's  beautiful." 

"  Then  it's  as  the  mother  of  beauty  ?  But  you  said  it 
was  a  case  of  famous  mother." 

"  Yes,  it's  she  —  she  herself.  You'll  have  to  see  her  and 
to  know  her.  I  first  did  so  in  the  Mediterranean,  near  the 
island  of  Cyprus." 

"A  Venus  Anadyomene?  " 

"Yes  —  yes  —  that's  it!  Venus  arisen  from  the  sea. 
She  was  on  a  celebrity's  yacht." 

"I  should  think  that  a  yacht  would  be  the  only  method  of 
really  enjoying  the  Mediterranean  — "  From  David's  slight 
self-consciousness  Emily  recognized  the  method  as  his.  He 
had  surely  found  Barley  Buns  as  lucrative  as  she  had  found 


L'lM AGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  169 

them  indigestible.  "But  you  see  it's  only  wonderful  beings 
like  the  Benches  who  have  at  their  beck  and  call  all  the 
luxuries — " 

David  cut  her  short.  "I  was  afraid  you  were  getting 
that  impression." 

"What  impression?" 

"You  know  very  well  the  impression  I  mean;  and  it's 
emphatically  wrong  —  emphatically  not  so." 

Emily  laughed.  "My  dear  young  man,  there's  no  need 
of  being  so  emphatic  about  it !" 

There  was  a  pause  —  heavy  laden.  Emily  wasn't  sure, 
after  all,  that  little  David  Bariow  was  so  capable  of  taking 
care  of  himself  as  she  had  thought.  His  cleverness  —  his 
alertness  —  had  deserted  him.  He  was  stupidly  flounder 
ing,  getting  himself  with  every  step  more  entangled  in  the 
skein;  and  he  now  at  her  sharp  pulling  up  suggested  the 
terrier  to  which  he  had  formerly  been  compared,  after  a 
whipping.  But  her  pity,  usually  so  ready  for  him,  wouldn't 
come.  She  felt  herself  to  be  ruthless,  and  in  the  grip  of  a 
power  which  urged  her  to  be  more  so.  She  had  liked  her 
young  man  —  liked  him  for  himself  —  she  had  been  at  the 
beginning  of  something  very  charming,  an  entertainment 
provided  by  the  fates  to  cheer  onward  her  faltering,  recover 
ing  footsteps:  an  entertainment  quite  free  from  the  ob 
jections  and  dangers  besetting  that  other  one  provided  in 
like  manner  for  what  might  be  called  the  period  of  her  youth. 

In  liking  David  Barlow  she  was  still  fairly  loyal  to  her 
new,  changed  attitude  towards  his  sex.  If  far  removed 
from  that  portion  of  it  typified  by  the  steamer  rug  and  the 
plaided  cap,  he  was  equally  removed  from  that  typified  by 
Ralph  Parrish ;  and  it  was  this  last  which  Emily's  new  start 


170  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

most  proscribed.  And  that  part  of  herself  which  was  so 
lately  dead  and  decently  buried  was  given  by  him  no  impulse 
to  stir  in  its  grave.  If  cremation  had  taken  the  place  of 
burial,  he  might  be  said  to  have  risen  —  phoenix-like  — 
from  the  ashes.  It  was  an  accident  of  birth  that  had  placed 
him  in  the  twentieth  century,  an  accident  of  birth  that  his 
father  was  the  Barlow  of  Barley  Buns.  He  had  really 
stepped  out  of  an  early  French  comedy,  donning  the  garb 
of  modernity  to  the  accompaniment  of  soft  laughter.  The 
laughter,  Emily  knew,  was  not  on  his  side.  He  would  have 
been  better  to  have  stayed  in  his  rightful  period ;  modernity 
didn't  suit  him.  She  had  heard  vaguely  that  John  Barlow 
was  the  only  one  who  was  proud  of  his  son,  and  was  thought 
to  see  with  prejudiced  parental  eyes.  He  had  started  well, 
but  Barley  Buns  were  too  successful  —  he  didn't  have  to  be. 
It  wasn't,  as  the  princess  had  said,  necessary.  Yet  he  was 
alert  and  he  was  hawkish  —  he  was  highly  charming. 
He  had  risen,  phcenix-like,  sent  by  the  fates ;  and  now  he 
was  to  be  snatched  away  by  a  ranging  lady  of  uncertain 
years  and  certain  fame,  the* foyer  of  whose  hotel  was 
blocked  by  calling  celebrities,  and  who  had  lived  abroad 
so  long  that  at  first  in  her  own  country  she  would  feel  a  little 
lost. 

The  only  wonder  was  that  her  admirer  talked  of  her  so 
frankly.  It  was  either  very  nai've  of  him  —  nai'ver  than 
any  young  man  of  twenty-five  ever  was  —  or  else  very 
subtle.  Emily  began  to  suspect  David  Barlow  of  Machia 
vellian  depths  of  cunning.  He  was  even  more  worth  while 
than  she  had  thought.  She  had  advised  him  to  go  back 
to  his  work ;  but  that  was  as  far  as  her  self-sacrifice  went ; 
it  didn't  extend  to  advising  him  to  remain  and  go  over  — 


L'lM AGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  171 

before  her  very  eyes  —  to  the  camp  of  Mrs.  Bench.  Emily 
pictured  a  nervous  clutching  of  the  few  remaining  days. 

Besides,  she  feared  that  Mrs.  Dench  would  prove  a  too 
heavy  load  for  her  slim  shoulders.  And  that  she  needed 
shoulders  —  however  slim  —  was  plain  from  her  admirer's 
rather  marked  bid  for  them.  But  she  had  a  daughter,  and 
wasn't  a  daughter  sufficient  support?  This  one  would  be 
gawky  and  probably  of  an  emphasized  youth,  a  silent 
monument  to  the  one-time  existence  of  Dench,  who,  his 
widow  might  constantly  remind  one,  had  been  in  the  diplo 
matic  service.  Emily  had  a  faculty  for  projecting  her 
imagination  into  the  unknown,  —  illuminating  with  it  the 
hidden  corners,  —  and  as  the  talk  about  Mrs.  Dench  had 
progressed,  her  imagination  proved  a  faithful  emissary. 
Her  vision  was  vivid  of  a  small,  highly  finished  woman  — 
preferably  Titian-haired  —  with  a  faux  air  of  being  exceed 
ingly  well  dressed  and  speaking  many  languages  —  even 
English  —  with  exceeding  fluency.  She  figured  this  charm 
ing  creature  as  throwing  a  priceless  scarf  over  a  hotel  table, 
tacking  a  priceless  embroidery  to  a  hotel  wall,  bringing 
out  of  a  huge  battered  trunk  a  real  Russian  tea-service, 
and  herself  luxuriously  reclining  in  soft,  flowing  garments; 
while  the  daughter,  clad  in  a  starched  white  muslin  that  had 
the  air  of  having  shrunk  in  washing,  silently  and  awkwardly 
handed  about  nondescript  cakes.  The  daughter  gave  just 
the  necessary  final  touch. 

The  pause  which  had  followed  Emily's  pointing  out  of 
David  Barlow's  excess  of  emphasis  was  finally  ended  by 
that  young  man  himself.  "I'm  afraid  it's  been  stupid  for 
you  —  this  talk  about  a  woman  whom  you've  never  even 
seen.  It's  more  than  rude  of  me.  I  apologize."  He 


172  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

hesitated  in  a  search  for  the  right  tone.  "  The  Benches 
are  the  sort  of  people  that  their  friends  can  find  nothing 
better  to  do  than  to  talk  about,  to  marvel  at,  to  praise. 
I'm  sure  you'll  become  one  of  the  wondering  number.  You 
see,"  he  looked  up  at  her,  —  his  capability  of  taking  care 
of  himself  was  again  apparent,  —  "I  like  them  well  enough 
to  want  you  to  like  them." 

"When  you  know  the  Benches,"  Emily  helped  him  out, 
"  you're  provided  for  for  life  ?  —  All  your  stray  bits  of  talk 
and  of  thought?" 

Again  his  gratitude  was  touching.    "  Exactly !" 

in 

It  was  during  the  few  precious  remaining  days  —  which 
seemed  as  unfruitful  as  they  were  fleeting  —  that  Emily 
received  a  letter  from  her  cousin,  Laura  Parrish.  It  was 
merely  a  repetition  of  the  same  old  question,  the  same  duti 
ful,  cousinly  offer.  Now  that  Emily  had  been  ill  and  now 
that  she  was  so  much  better,  wouldn't  she  again  consider 
the  invitation  she  had  so  often  refused  and  come  to  Mrs. 
Parrish  at  Hornmouth?  Wouldn't  she  take  pity  on  a 
poor  lone  widow  who  had  come  to  the  shadowy  slopes? 
Her  path  seemed  fairly  strewn  with  pity  and  with  widows. 

Mrs.  Parrish  had  been  one  as  far  back  as  Emily  could 
remember.  In  fact,  her  first  remembrance  of  her  cousin  was 
of  the  first  moment  of  her  widowhood.  There  had  been  a 
riderless  horse,  a  search  too  soon  rewarded,  and  the  strange 
apparition  in  the  Stedman  doorway  of  a  white,  staring  face 
that  wept  and  made  other  noises  even  less  human,  and  that 
proved,  upon  investigation,  to  belong  to  Laura  Parrish. 
Emily's  attention  had  been  more  or  less  diverted  from 


I/IMAGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  173 

disaster  by  Ralph,  who  at  sight  of  his  mother's  extraordi 
nary  guise  stopped  short  in  his  play  and  joined  his  protests 
loudly  with  hers.  The  protests  had  ceased.  Mrs.  Parrish 
had  settled  herself  to  a  life  like  the  glow  leading  from  a 
conflagration.  She  was  as  inconsolable  as  Mrs.  Dench. 
Emily  remembered  a  portrait  of  the  deceased  —  big  and 
blond  and  bearded  —  which  hung  over  the  mantelpiece 
in  his  widow's  parlor.  He  must  have  been,  if  that  were 
possible,  even  a  more  exuberant  specimen  of  masculine 
beauty  than  his  son.  His  portrait  was  what  is  known  in 
popular  phraseology  as  a  speaking  likeness;  the  smiling 
face,  seeming  always  to  come  a  little  out  of  the  canvas, 
sometimes  had  the  effect  of  coming  even  farther  than  that 
and  following  one  around  the  room. 

It  was  the  thing  most  vivid  to  her  as  Emily  reread  Mrs. 
Parrish's  letter,  the  thing  that  most  typified  the  Hornmouth 
to  which  she  had  the  chance  of  returning.  She  had  once 
called  her  cousin's  house  the  smile  of  the  father  of  Pan.  The 
appellation  still  held.  And  what  had  she,  with  her  new 
exaggerated  sense  of  moral  values  and  her  new  rise  of  the 
curtain,  to  do  with  Pan?  She  was  at  breakfast,  and  she 
looked  about  her  at  the  big,  light  dining  room  sparsely 
dotted  with  people  as  a  new  garden  with  plants.  She 
watched  the  darky  waiters  sleekly  and  silently  moving 
among  the  white-covered  tables,  unlading  their  overladen 
trays  and  responding  to  the  morning  greetings  of  their 
employers.  At  a  near  table  there  was  an  old  lady  in  a 
knitted  shawl  who  was  consuming  a  vast  quantity  of 
muffins.  She  thoughtfully  munched  them  and  thought 
fully  gazed  out  at  the  ever  present  ocean.  There  was 
another  old  lady,  more  modern,  who  read  a  newspaper 


174  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

through  round,  wide-rimmed  glasses,  and  ominously  rattled 
it  as  she  turned  the  sheet.  It  was  a  more  fitting  setting  and 
they  more  fitting  fellow-guests  for  a  pale  little  authoress 
than  even  Hornmouth  could  provide. 

Yet  Emily  had  never  before  been  so  tempted  to  accept 
her  cousin's  offer.  It  had  never  before  appeared  to  her  in 
the  light  of  a  temptation;  but  then  it  had  never  been  at 
one  with  the  impulse  to  turn  her  cheek  from  a  coming 
blow.  Mrs.  Parrish  was  leaving  Boston  for  Hornmouth 
on  the  same  day  upon  which  Mrs.  Bench  was  due  to  arrive 
at  Ocean  City.  Emily  could  go  out  of  one  door  while  Mrs. 
Dench  was  coming  in  at  the  other ;  she  liked  David  Barlow 
far  too  well  to  stand  by  while  a  woman  like  Mrs.  Dench  had 
him  in  her  clutches.  It  was  a  chance  —  heaven  sent. 

But  what  of  the  chance  to  stay — to  be  in  at  the  fight — 
to  see  the  drama  which  the  rising  curtain  would  disclose? 
To  watch  David  Barlow,  ever  repaying  of  watching,  in  the 
paces  and  convolutions  that  Mrs.  Dench  would  undoubtedly 
put  him  through  ?  And  Mrs.  Dench  was  a  woman  the  like 
of  which  Emily  happened  never  to  have  seen.  She  could 
for  once  immolate  herself  —  though  not  on  that  sacrificial 
altar  which  she  had  so  lately  desired  —  on  the  altar  of 
broadening  experience.  In  watching  David  Barlow  she 
could  even  forget  that  she  liked  him.  It  all  depended  upon 
her  ability  to  regard  the  thing  as  a  spectacle  of  which  she 
herself  was  merely  one  of  the  favored  and  exceptionally 
closely  seated  spectators.  She  promised  herself  that  she 
could;  she  would  have  promised  anything;  the  undiscovered 
country  was  calling  to  her.  The  temptation,  she  suddenly 
found,  was  all  on  its  side.  She  was  face  to  face  with 
it,  and  face  to  face,  also,  with  the  solution  of  her  whole  be- 


L'lM  AGINATION   SENTIMENT  ALE  175 

draggled  little  life.  Her  cousin  needed  her.  The  two 
women  would  settle  down  together  in  the  shadowy  slopes 
—  bury  the  hatchet  and  smoke  the  pipe  of  peace.  She 
again  turned  to  Mrs.  Parrish's  letter. 

Somewhere  in  its  neatly  written  pages  was  a  sentence 
that  came  out  of  them  very  much  as  Mr.  Parrish's  por- 
traited  face  came  out  of  the  canvas,  "  Ralph,  as  I  suppose 
you  know,  gets  back  next  week."  She  hadn't  known,  and 
the  source  of  the  information  only  showed  what  a  promi 
nence  Hornmouth  would  give  to  the  newly  made  grave. 
On  his  return  the  dutiful  son  would  make  one  of  his  flying 
visits  there  to  find  Emily  snugly  ensconced.  She  felt  now 
that  she  couldn't  stand  a  repetition  of  his  lie  about  having 
been  forced  to  go.  The  bare  sight  of  him  couldn't  be  any 
thing  but  painful.  She  hadn't  seen  him  since  she  had  cried 
out  in  the  extremity  of  her  checked  passion  for  him  and 
since  she  had  come  to  look  at  the  grave  of  this  passion  with 
coldness.  But  she  knew  how  he  would  appear;  her  in 
quiring  fancy  took  in  all  the  details  of  his  attire,  from  the 
very  yellow  travelling  bag  with  which  he  always  returned 
from  a  journey  to  the  blue  necktie  that  exactly  matched  the 
blue  in  his  eyes.  He  would  take  up  too  much  room;  he 
would  fill  the  landscape  almost  too  handsomely.  He 
belonged  to  a  period  at  once  earlier  and  more  universal 
than  that  mirrored  by  French  comedy. 

Her  path  was  barred  on  either  side  by  an  ordeal.  On 
the  one  the  meeting  with  Ralph,  on  the  other  the  meeting 
with  Mrs.  Bench,  and  the  spectacle  of  the  injuries  that 
unknown  lady  would  undoubtedly  inflict  upon  David 
Barlow. 

That  young  man  was  following  what  seemed  to  be  the 


176  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

fashion  in  Ocean  City,  and  reading  the  newspaper.  It  was 
propped,  for  his  better  perusal,  against  a  conveniently 
shaped  water  carafe,  and  its  contents  so  absorbed  him 
that  he  hadn't  given  Miss  Stedman  his  usual  pleasant  smile. 
He  presented  her,  however,  with  the  neat,  fine  outline  of  his 
profile.  He  looked  young  and  sharp  and  so  very  far  from 
decadent  that  he  rather  disclaimed  his  connection  with  the 
period  which  Ralph  Parrish  so  antedated.  He  was  young 
and  sharp  and  the  very  finest  essence  of  the  masculine ;  his 
was  a  masculinity  compared  to  which  Ralph  Parrish's  was 
as  the  residue  from  which  that  essence  had  been  refined. 
And  still  the  suggestion  —  slightly  inhuman  —  of  a  mar 
ionette,  a  figure  in  wax.  Emily  looked  at  him  and  was 
overcome  by  her  own  helplessness.  Her  new,  returning 
strength  made  her  chafe  at  it,  and  chafe  at  the  convention 
that  prevented  her  from  getting  up  and  going  over  to  David 
Barlow  where  he  sat  at  breakfast  and  picking  him  up  and 
carrying  him  away. 

rv 

"You're  getting  well;  but  you're  not  getting  well  fast 
enough."  Dr.  Jeffries  stood  aside  to  let  Emily  pass  out  of 
her  room,  and  his  pronouncement  was  cut  short  by  a  diffi 
culty  that  she  experienced  in  locking  her  door.  He  had 
to  come  to  her  assistance,  and  it  was  a  moment  more,  as 
there  were  people  in  the  long  corridor  leading  to  the  ele 
vator,  before  he  was  free  to  go  on  with  it.  "  You  say  you're 
a  hopeless  invalid  and  will  never  be  well;  but  you  know 
there  isn't  any  necessity  for  any  one's  being  a  hopeless  in 
valid —  not  any.  And  with  you  it's  not  a  case  of  hypo 
chondria,  don't  misunderstand  me.  Why,  every  time  that 


I/IMAGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  177 

I  examine  you,  I  marvel  at  the  things  you  put  up  with. 
You  have  grit  —  but  have  a  little  more  —  get  well !" 

Emily  responded  to  all  this  by  a  question.  "You'll 
stay  to  lunch  ?  We  can  have  it  now." 

"  Thank  you  —  just  a  bite.  Then  I  must  be  off.  I  ran 
down  especially  to  see  you,  and  I  have  an  engagement  which 
makes  it  imperative,  my  being  in  town  at  five." 

"Even  on  Sunday?" 

"Even  on  Sunday.  Why,  —  I  wouldn't  dare  say  it  to 
most  women,  but  I'm  sure  you'll  understand  —  I  haven't 
been  to  church  except  for  a  funeral  in  twelve  years !  That 
shows  how  busy  I  am.  Do  you  think  I've  any  chance  of 
heaven  ?  I've  cultivated  a  habit  of  early  rising,  and  I'm 
beautifully  clean." 

"  I  believe  those  are  the  two  principal  qualifications.  But 
a  great  doctor  should  be  let  in  without  examination." 

"Ah  —  I  don't  approve  of  honorary  degrees  !" 

Dr.  Jeffries  could  well  afford  not  to,  with  a  half-dozen  real 
ones  to  his  credit.  Yet  he  wasn't  at  all  the  typical  scholar 
—  or  even  the  typical  physician.  He  was  like  a  man  who 
had  lived  his  life  a  very  long  way  from  human  ills ;  his  eyes 
were  like  eyes  that  had  gazed  at  far,  sunlit  horizons  rather 
than  at  the  printed  page.  He  might,  for  this  last,  and  for 
the  tightish  cut  of  his  vivid  blue  clothes,  have  been  a  naval 
officer  on  shore  leave ;  though  for  this  last,  had  he  been  in 
the  navy,  he  was  of  an  age  to  have  been  retired.  He  was 
frequently  mistaken  for  an  Englishman  because  he  spoke 
without  a  twang  and  had  a  certain  brusqueness  of  manner. 

"I  can't  conceive,"  he  said  at  lunch,  "of  a  better  place 
than  this  in  which  to  rest.  In  fact,  I  can't  conceive  of  a 
place  half  as  good."  He  smiled  with  his  clear,  light  eyes  — 


178  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"Yet  I  can't  help  feeling  that  there's  something  about  it 
you  don't  quite  like.  Physically  you're  as  much  better 
as  is  possible  considering  that  you're  hardly  improved 
nervously.  You're  living  at  a  pitch  that  would  kill  most 
of  us.  There's  a  disturbing  element  somewhere;  and  if 
it's  appurtenant  to  Ocean  City,  why,  leave !  If  you  say  so 
I'll  take  you  back  to  town  with  me  in  my  machine  this 
very  afternoon  —  now  —  in  half  an  hour." 

"My  things—" 

"  Why  do  you  have  a  maid  ?    But  I  see  you  won't  come." 

"I  couldn't  possibly.  Besides,  you're  wrong.  There's 
no  disturbing  element.  I  like  it  here  immensely." 

"And  you  don't  think  it  any  business  of  mine?  It's 
sometimes  hard  for  a  doctor  to  remember  that  he's  not  a 
sort  of  miniature  Almighty.  But  if  you  really  want  my 
advice,  I  think  you've  been  here  long  enough.  Go  some 
where  where  it's  absolutely  quiet." 

"  But  it's  quiet  here !  You  see  it  at  a  disadvantage  on 
Sunday;  people  are  down  for  the  day  and  from  Saturday 
till  Monday,  but  I  assure  you  that  from  Monday  to  Saturday 
it's  as  quiet  as  a  mouse." 

Dr.  Jeffries  seemed  to  take  the  assurance  with  reserva 
tions.  "I've  had  patients,"  he  told  Emily,  "who  have 
been  greatly  benefited  by  a  cruise  on  a  freight  steamer 
which  carried  no  other  passengers.  Something  might  be 
arranged.  If  you're  now  living  at  the  wrong  pitch,  that 
would  at  least  change  it." 

The  pun  was  execrable,  but  Emily  took  it  up.  "  Change 
it?  Rather.  And  would  I  finally  be  able  to  return?" 

"  Not  to  your  original  pitch  —  no.  But  you'd  be  prac 
tically  well." 


L'IMAGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  179 

"Yet  it  would  only  be  a  very  clever  mend?" 

"  Yes,  a  very  clever  mend.  But  what  more  can  you  ask? 
And  it  rests  with  you,  whether  you're  to  give  yourself  the 
benefit  of  a  very  clever  mend  or  remain  a  cracked  dish  laid 
away  on  the  pantry  shelf.  Think  of  your  work,  save  your 
self  for  that  —  " 

"I  do." 

"Then  save  yourself  still  more." 

"Then  there  wouldn't  be  any  work,  I'm  afraid.  There's 
little  enough  as  it  is." 

The  doctor  arrested  in  mid-air  the  passage  of  his  fork. 
"Oh,  if  you  look  at  it  like  that !  It's  not  normal."  There 
was  a  pause  which  he  presently  ended  by  regarding  with 
suspicion  an  article  of  food  that  his  patient  was  about 
to  take  up.  "I  wouldn't  eat  it  if  I  were  you.  You're 
at  least  willing  to  do  my  bidding  in  matters  of  that  kind, 
aren't  you?  Now  that  Miss  Harden  has  gone — " 

She  cut  him  short.     "  In  matters  of  what  kind  am  I  not  ?  " 

"  You  refuse  —  point-blank  —  to  change  the  thing  I  call 
the  pitch  at  which  you  live." 

"But  I  couldn't  change  it  even  if  I  would." 

"  Ah,  yes  you  could  —  but  you  like  it  too  much.  You 
get  too  much  enjoyment.  It's  a  form  of  dissipation." 

"  I  should  say  you'd  hit  upon  the  wrong  word,  but  put  it 
so." 

"  Oh,  I  know  what  I  mean  —  I  know  what  I  mean  !" 

Emily  was  afraid  that  if  she  followed  his  instructions,  she 
shouldn't  recognize  herself;  she  would  be  mended,  she  told 
him,  so  cleverly  that  she'd  be  altogether  new. 

"And  you  wouldn't  care  for  that?" 

"With  the  greater  part  of  me  already  dead,  if  the  rest 
of  me  were  new,  why,  what  would  I  have  left?" 


180  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

Dr.   Jeffries   misunderstood  her.    "But   that's   just  it 

—  it  would  not  then  be  dead.    It  would  come  to  life  — 
normal,  splendid  life." 

Her  answer  was  startling.     "  Heaven  forbid !" 

She  was  looking  towards  the  door.     David  Barlow,  as 

the  last  of  a  little  group  of  people  who  were  entering  it, 

seemed  like  a  solidifying  of  her  thoughts. 
The  great  doctor  followed  the  direction  of  her  look.    "  Of 

course,  we  all  have  our  objections,  but  I  can't  say  that  I 

see  yours.     I  never  yet  heard  of  anything  better  than  health 

—  even  at  the  cost  of  being  altogether  new." 

Emily  wasn't  listening.  It  was  now  apparent  that  the 
little  group  with  which  David  Barlow  had  come  in  was 
bound  to  him  by  a  closer  tie  than  mere  simultaneousness 
of  entrance,  for  he  had  seated  himself  with  them  at  another 
table  than  his  own  in  the  farther  end  of  the  room.  The 
little  group  —  in  number  hardly  worthy  of  the  name  — 
consisted  of  two  women,  a  young  very  tall  one  and  an  older 
one  not  quite  so  tall.  In  the  brief  near  glimpse  that  Emily 
had  had  of  them,  the  older  had  struck  her  as  being  educated 
and  competent  and  dignified ;  she  wore  a  very  good  gown, 
and  walked  with  an  ease  and  grace  to  which  her  inclina 
tion  to  stoutness  only  seemed  to  add.  As  they  passed,  the 
younger's  face  had  been  turned  away,  and  beyond  the  fact 
of  her  being  strong  and  tall  and  slim,  Emily  hadn't  taken 
her  in.  The  thought  that  rushed  over  her  was  how  much 
these  people  —  evidently  relatives  of  David's  —  would 
interfere  with  the  plans  of  Mrs.  Dench,  who  was  coming 
with  her  daughter  on  the  morrow. 

Something  of  this  was  conveyed  in  David's  manner.  His 
excitement  —  though  suppressed  —  might  have  been  of  a 


L'IMAGINATION   SENTIMENTALE  181 

sort  which  a  man  has  with  a  knotty  problem  presented  him 
to  solve  before  a  specified  and  rapidly  approaching  hour. 
He  was  carrying  his  problem  gallantly,  with  laughter  and 
hawkish  head  held  high,  and  as  Emily  watched  him  at  the 
distant  table,  she  had  inconsistently  the  desire  to  help  him 
out  of  his  predicament.  If  she  could  have  got  his  intruding 
relatives  away,  she  would  have  done  so  willingly. 

Dr.  Jeffries  was  still  looking  where  she  was.  "You  say 
you  wouldn't  care  for  being  altogether  new.  Now  the 
pale  young  man  and  the  large  woman  and  —  by  Jove !  — 
the  beautiful  girl  —  I  don't  wonder  you  stare  —  now,  what 
would  they  care  for?" 

The  question,  meant  in  all  lightness,  had  on  her  an  un 
looked-for  effect  —  brought  over  her,  suddenly,  the  sensa 
tion  of  rising  tears  —  made  something  very  vivid  to  her 
which  before  hadn't  been  so  clear. 

"I  don't  know,  I'm  sure.  I  wish  to  heaven  I  did.  I'd 
give  anything  in  life  to  know  what  one  of  them  cared  for." 

The  physician  used  an  expletive  so  violent  that  its  only 
excuse  was  sheer,  blind  wonder.  It  was  proof  of  the  size 
of  the  great  room  —  the  appalling  privacy  which  Ocean 
City,  among  other  things,  provided  —  that  no  one  stirred. 

"  You  haven't  yet  definitely  said  whether  you'll  take  my 
advice." 

"I  can't  leave.  It's  as  you  say,  I  get  too  much  enjoy 
ment  where  I  am." 

"Then  there's  nothing  I  can  do.  You've  made  your 
choice."  He,  too,  was  staring  now  —  staring  at  David 
Barlow  —  "Ah  —  believe  me  — "he  turned  full  about  — 
"believe  me  —  that's  not  the  way  to  get  well !  " 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN 


"THE  Benches  have  come.  They're  over  there  by  the 
big  sofa,  and  extremely  anxious  to  know  you.  Of  course 
I  realize  that  it's  hardly  tact  to  bring  you  up  to  Jane ;  but 
then,  on  the  other  hand,  would  it  be  so  to  bring  her  mother 
up  to  you  ?  Won't  you  simply  waive  ceremony  ?  " 

"Need  you  ask?"  said  Emily,  and  then  irrelevantly  — 
"  They  came  a  day  before  they  were  expected,  didn't  they  ?  " 

"Yes,  almost  straight  from  the  steamer." 

The  women  who  were  standing  a  little  distance  away 
in  the  dimness  of  the  hotel  sun  parlor  at  dusk  were  the  same 
women  whom  Emily  had  seen  at  lunch.  She  had  —  all 
at  once  —  the  sensations  of  relief,  bewilderment,  and  dis 
appointment;  and  an  odd  sense  of  waiting,  as  if,  in  spite 
of  anything  that  David  Barlow  might  say  —  and  he  should 
know  —  the  real  Mrs.  Dench  and  the  real  Jane  had  not  yet 
arrived.  They  might  appear  at  any  moment,  the  Benches 
of  her  preconceived  idea  —  the  mother  a  little  worn,  per 
haps,  but  considering  her  certain  years  worn  wonderfully 
well;  the  daughter  starched  and  awkward  and  angular. 
But  as  the  moments  fled  and  they  still  didn't,  Emily  was 
left  to  reconstruct  her  shattered  fancy  as  best  she  might. 

It  was  Mrs.  Bench  who  presently  herself  waived  ceremony 

182 


THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN      183 

and  advanced  to  meet  her  across  the  wide,  carpeted  floor. 
But  Jane  was  in  her  mother's  wake,  and  it  was  Jane  whom 
Emily  saw  first.  Her  impulse  was  to  challenge  David 
Barlow  —  "  Why  didn't  you  prepare  me  —  why  didn't 
you  give  me  some  semblance  of  warning?  And  after 
all  our  talks !  "  But  Jane  had  her  hand  in  a  firm  short 
grip,  and  she  was  left  with  only  the  little  inward  take  of  the 
breath  which  accompanied  with  her  any  too  violent  emotion. 
Instead  of  the  starched  awkwardness  of  her  vagrant  fancy, 
she  found  herself  confronted  with  a  grace,  a  charm,  a  color, 
a  symmetry  —  she  hunted  in  vain  for  a  fault.  Jane  had  the 
untouched  quality  of  newly  fallen  snow  or  the  ocean  at 
early  morning  —  the  quality  which  one  was  immediately 
afraid  wouldn't  —  couldn't  —  last.  And  nothing  to  come 
could  be  so  good.  Even  the  loss  of  her  abruptness,  her 
young  angularity,  would  be  a  change  for  the  worse.  The 
clear,  jewelled  eyes;  the  long  mouth,  not  too  red;  the  su 
premely  simple  nose  and  smooth,  slim  cheek;  the  straight 
line  of  throat;  the  voice  softened  by  contact  with  many 
languages ;  it  seemed  an  appallingly  rich  treasure  box  from 
which  these  could  be  drawn  haphazard.  But  Jane  Bench 
didn't  suggest  a  treasure  box,  either  rich  or  poor.  She  was 
—  instead  —  a  tall  young  sapling,  that  somehow  didn't 
sprawl,  and  had  caught  in  miraculous  perfection  the  line 
of  beauty. 

There  was  something  else  that  Emily  wished  to  say  to 
David  Barlow  —  another  charge  to  make ;  though  this  time 
of  a  nature  complimentary.  She  wished  to  tell  him  that 
he'd  been  very  clever  —  he  had  been  more  deeply  subtle, 
even,  than  she  had  thought  —  and  she  would  have  liked 
to  ask  him  why  he'd  been  at  such  pains  to  be  so  clever  — 


184  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

at  such  pains  to  conceal  from  her  the  fact  of  its  being  Jane, 
and  not  her  mother,  who  made  the  Benches  what  they  were 

—  and  himself  the  most  beautiful,  deepest  red.    Jane  looked 
at  him  straight,  and  then  she  turned  her  rather  fixed  regard 
upon  his  friend. 

"  It  seems  so  splendid  to  get  back.  We  passed  through 
our  own  country,  when  was  it,  mother  —  ten  years  ago  ? 

—  but  we've  been  away  so  long  that  we  can't  believe  it 
when  we  post  our  letters  with  American  stamps  1" 

"Don't  you  like  being  away?" 

"We  like  it  very  much  —  of  course." 

"We  like  everything  very  much,"  said  Mrs.  Dench; 
"we're  wily,  battered  old  diplomats,  and  everything  is 
always  right." 

Emily  caught  at  the  word,  'diplomats/  as  a  drowning 
man  catches  at  a  straw.  Mrs.  Dench  was  a  diplomat's 
widow  —  the  word  confirmed  it.  For  her  dignity  she  might 
have  been  the  widow  of  a  prime  minister.  No  station 
would  have  been  for  her  too  exalted.  In  the  place  of  Titian 
hair  and  the  patched  remnants  of  beauty,  she  had  hair 
frankly  grizzled  at  the  temples  and  a  general  appearance 
making  no  pretence  to  loveliness.  But  she  had  a  presence. 
Emily  was  inclined  to  spell  it  with  a  capital  'P.'  It  was 
a  presence  in  itself  carried  to  a  point  of  high  art,  redolent  of 
European  courts  and  a  civilization  perfected  through  cen 
turies  —  a  presentation  of  herself,  an  ease  of  manner,  which 
went  far  towards  lessening  Emily's  disappointment.  The 
reconstruction  of  her  shattered  fancy  was  already  begun. 
She  found  it  a  task  not  unworthy. 

"Our  trunks  have  come,"  Mrs.  Dench  was  saying,  "and 
I  think  we'd  better  see  to  them.  You'll  be  here  at  dinner  ? 


THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN      185 

I  never  feel  capable  of  any  rational  conversation  till  I  un 
pack  my  trunks  —  not  that  there's  anything  in  them  — 
but  it's  a  moral  support,  knowing  that  one's  few  rags  and 
trinkets  are  home  again." 

"Mr.  Barlow's  been  telling  me  that  you  work  the 
most  marvellous  transformations  —  turn  cottages  into 
castles  — " 

"  We're  certainly  very  clever  at  it,"  —  she  included  Jane; 
"  we  have  to  be.  Over  here  they  give  you  a  telephone,  an 
electric  light,  a  brass  bedstead,  and  a  scrap  basket.  Over 
there  you  get  anterooms,  corridors,  white  and  gold  salons. 
Here  they're  so  afraid  you  won't  know  they're  modern; 
there,  they're  so  afraid  you  won't  know  they're  old.  Well, 
we'll  see  you  later."  As  Mrs.  Bench  smiled,  Emily  dis 
covered  where  Jane  came  by  her  length  of  mouth.  She 
watched  her  as,  still  in  her  mother's  wake,  she  went  down 
the  long  vista  of  the  room,  looming  off  into  the  dimness. 
It  was  to  Mrs.  Bench,  however,  that  her  next  words  re 
ferred  :  — 

"Tell  me,  in  every  country  does  your  friend  speak  not 
only  the  language,  but  the  vernacular?" 

"She  speaks  whatever  she  likes."  Bavid  Barlow  was 
also  gazing  at  the  end  of  the  room  through  which  the  mother 
and  daughter  had  made  their  exit.  "She's  not  in  the  least 
what  you  were  prepared  for,  is  she  ?  You're  disappointed. 
You  were  prepared  for  I  don't  quite  know  what." 

" Bisappointed ?  Never  less  so!"  Emily  laughed. 
"  I'd  rather  counted  on  a  mass  of  red  hair  — " 

"  Why  don't  you  say  frankly  that  you'd  rather  counted  on 
a  woman  dyed  and  painted?" 

"Hardly  that!" 


186  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"You  see,  it's  as  I  said.  Mrs.  Dench  is  exceedingly 
quiet." 

"And  isn't  Jane  quiet?" 

"  Jane  doesn't  have  to  be  anything  else." 

"She  doesn't,  does  she?  What  with  a  mother  and  a 
beauty.  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  it  was  Jane?" 

"It?"  he  objected. 

"You  know  quite  well  what  I  mean." 

"Oh,  but  it  isn't !"  he  brought  out. 

"  You  imply  that  she's  merely  the  lamb  led  to  the  sacrifice 
—  the  beautiful  votive  offering  —  the  maiden  chained  to 
the  rock?" 

"I  imply  that  she's  nothing  of  the  sort !" 

Emily  was  aware  that  she  had  in  some  way  trodden  upon  a 
guarded  grass  patch.  Where  Mrs.  Dench  was  concerned 
David  Barlow  seemed  given  to  overemphasis;  but  she 
respected  the  grass  patch  and  this  time  let  it  pass.  She 
told  him  her  impression  of  the  Presence  —  how  she  admired 
it,  and  how  she  felt  sure  she  should  admire  it  more  and  more. 
"A  woman,"  she  said  of  Mrs.  Dench,  "with  a  mind — " 

David  was  pacified.  "  Yet  she's  a  creature  of  action  — 
not  of  theory." 

"I  can  see  that." 

"  She's  one  of  the  great  forces  —  you  remember  our  con 
versation  of  the  other  day  ?  —  what  you  said  of  idle  specu 
lation,  how  the  really  great  ones  were  so  tremendously 
occupied  that  they  hadn't  time  to  bother?  Well,  Mrs. 
Dench  is  less  given  to  idle  speculation  than  any  woman, 
who  —  as  you  say  —  has  a  mind,  I  ever  saw.  She's  as  you 
say,  Venus  arisen  from  the  sea.  You  have  a  way  of  putting 
things  —  you  hit  upon  the  right  word,  the  right  phrase. 


THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN 

Venus  arisen  from  the  sea  — "  David  sincerely  commended 
her  for  her  aptness  in  this  one,  and  Emily  didn't  remind 
him  that  it  was  coined  before  she  had  seen  the  lady  whom 
it  was  supposed  to  define. 

"You  say — "  Emily  brought  out  —  they  seemed  to 
hurl  back  each  other's  words  —  "  you  say,  or  rather  you 
intimate,  that  Mrs.  Bench  is  tremendously  occupied  — " 

"And  you  wonder  at  what?  I  suppose  she  really  isn't, 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  except  for  looking  after 
Jane  and  doing  the  innumerable  things  that  women  do  — 
shopping  and  arranging  their  clothes  and  all  that.  But 
it's  an  occupation  for  her  to  be  herself.  She's  action  — 
she's  force  —  she's  vital  and  splendid  — " 

"Ah  —  you're  the  most  remarkable  young  man! — " 
Emily's  voice  narrowly  escaped  harshness. 

ii 

"Mr.  Barlow  tells  me  you're  the  Miss  Stedman." 

"I'm  afraid  the  other  ladies  of  the  name  of  Stedman 
wouldn't  admit  it." 

"They'd  have  no  right  not  to.  The  extraordinary  thing 
is,  you  know — "  Mrs.  Bench  paused;  "the  extraordinary 
thing  is  that  you  should  have  written  a  book  that  I  wouldn't 
let  Jane  read.  I  don't  care  what  she  reads  behind  my  back ; 
but  when  she  comes  to  me  —  out  and  out  —  well,  she  never 
got  beyond  the  first  chapter,  did  you,  Jane?" 

"No,  never."     Jane  smiled. 

"Oh,  if  she  finished  the  first  chapter  of  'The  Cuckoo' !" 
said  Bavid  Barlow. 

"She  might  as  well  have  gone  on?  Not  at  her  age, 
Bavid." 


188  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

It  was  after  dinner  on  the  day  after  the  next  —  the  inter 
vening  one  having  been  spent  by  Emily  flat  on  her  back  — 
and  the  Benches  and  David  had  come  in  from  the  dining 
room  to  find  her  in  almost  sole  possession  of  the  big  sun 
parlor.  She  had  been  sitting  there  trying  to  read  by  the 
light  of  a  gayly  shaded  lamp  —  a  little  lonely  and  a  little 
depressed  —  since  she  also  had  come  in  from  the  dining 
room  some  half  hour  before.  She  had  gone  through  with 
the  full  ceremonial  of  dinner,  her  darky  waiter  more  as 
siduous  than  ever,  and  her  desire  for  nourishment  less.  It 
was  better,  however,  to  be  downstairs  among  the  lights  and 
the  wide  spaces  than  upstairs  in  the  company  of  the  be- 
ruffled  maid,  who  sewed  eternally  and  who  rocked  eternally 
in  the  rocking-chair  that  she  had  asked  permission  to  carry 
into  her  tiny  room  that  opened  out  of  Emily's.  Emily 
had  watched  her  through  the  opened  door  for  what  was  little 
short  of  two  whole  days  —  watched  her  and  listened  to 
the  whining  French  song  with  which  she  helped  to  speed 
the  hours  now  that  her  mistress  was  well  and  wouldn't 
be  disturbed.  It  was  true  the  carnations  on  the  wall-paper 
had  ceased  to  nod  their  heads.  But  Emily  had  come 
down  —  down  among  the  lights  and  the  people  and  the 
wide  spaces,  and  if  she  felt  a  trifle  lost  and  a  trifle  at  sea 
without  the  charming  escort  to  whom  she  had  so  rapidly 
become  accustomed,  it  wasn't  anybody's  business  but  her 
own,  and  she  could  keep  a  bold  front.  She  had  answered 
her  cousin  Laura's  letter  in  the  negative,  and  she  therefore 
had  a  sense  of  having  burned  her  bridges  behind  her.  A 
bold  front  was  the  only  possible  one.  The  Benches  and 
David  Barlow  found  her  more  than  usually  gay. 

"The  question  of  age  — "  she  spoke  in  reference  to  Mrs. 


THE  EEMAEKABLE  YOUNG  MAN      189 

Bench's  remark  to  David,  — "  the  question  of  age  does, 
I  suppose,  make  a  difference." 

"Oh,  immense!"  Mrs.  Bench  seated  herself  beside  her, 
and  she  couldn't  help  a  certain  retrospective  amusement 
at  Bavid's  request  that  she  make  the  path  of  the  home 
coming  exile  smooth.  The  exile  was  already  so  much  more 
at  home  than  she  —  so  easy  and  so  competent  and  so  ut 
terly  without  need  of  protection  or  care.  Emily  could  see 
that  upon  first  acquaintance  she  hadn't  begun  to  appreciate 
her  or  even  to  see  how  much  there  was  of  her  to  appreciate. 
The  let-down  from  her  preconceived  vision  had  been  sharp. 
For  that  matter,  it  still  remained  so.  But  she  had  of  her 
attractions  the  infallible  feminine  proof  —  Bavid  Barlow 
was  in  love  with  her,  and  Bavid  Barlow  was  a  young  man 
whose  taste  she  respected.  The  attractions  must  be  there. 
If  she  still  couldn't  help  taking  them  a  little  on  faith,  it 
was  a  perfect  faith. 

She  smiled  at  Jane.  "  Yet  they  say  that  America  is  the 
paradise  of  the  young  girl  —  all  the  books  are  written  for 
her  —  all  the  plays  — " 

Mrs.  Bench  broke  in.  "Ah  —  if  you  call  the  young, 
unmarried  American  female,  a  young  girl !  Those  that  I've 
seen  reminded  me  of  either  boys  or  fools  or  something  for 
which  in  France  we  have  no  polite  name.  And  it  goes 
without  saying  that  'The  Cuckoo,'  or  even  a  work  far  more 
elaborate,  couldn't  do  them  harm." 

"  I  see  you've  no  love  for  the  American  product." 

"Quite  frankly,  I  haven't.  In  fact,  the  proper  bringing 
up  of  my  own  young  girl  — "  the  mother  placed  a  hand  on 
her  daughter's  shoulder  —  "  was  my  strongest  reason  for 
spending  so  many  years  on  the  other  side." 


190  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"Just  as  now,"  said  David,  "you're  coming  back  on  her 
account." 

Mrs.  Bench  looked  at  him  with  a  momentary  sharpness. 
"Exactly  so." 

Emily  supposed  it  part  of  Jane's  proper  bringing  up  that 
she  was  as  unmoved  —  as  detached  —  during  this  intimate 
discussion  of  her  as  though  she  had  been  both  deaf  and 
dumb.  Her  mother's  censorship  of  her  literature  didn't 
quite  seem  to  extend  to  the  things  that  might  be  said  before 
her.  But  perhaps  she  was  girded  against  these  by  the  armor 
of  innocence  with  which  her  proper  bringing  up  had  en 
chained  her.  Emily  imagined  that  it  would  be  necessary 
in  Europe,  an  armor  of  that  sort;  and  it  was  the  demand 
which  had  undoubtedly  created  the  supply. 

"Mr.  Barlow  says  you're  coming  back  on  your  daughter's 
account  —  I  hardly  see — "  Emily  paused  invitingly;  she 
found  Mrs.  Bench's  methods  inconsistent. 

"Jane  became  very  homesick,  and  I  feel  that  she's  now  in 
a  position  to  choose.  You  see,  with  her  bringing  up  America 
won't  hurt  her." 

Jane  unexpectedly  came  to  life.     "I'm  immune !" 

"And  warranted,"  said  David,  "not  to  come  out  in  the 
wash." 

"Will  there  be  &  wash?" 

"Mondays  —  always." 

"And  you're  backing  me?" 

"Bown  to  my  last  cent." 

"Then  I'll  do  my  best." 

"Thanks." 

It  was  now  Mrs.  Bench  who  was  oblivious ;  her  detach 
ment  was  even  more  perfect  than  had  been  her  daughter's. 


THE  KEMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN       191 

They  carried  the  relation  of  parent  and  child  to  a  very  high 
point.  It  was  perhaps  a  different  conception  of  this  rela 
tion  from  that  familiar  to  Emily ;  but  she  had  never  before 
seen  a  conception  so  thought  out.  It  reminded  her  of  the 
very  perfected  ideal  of  it  set  forth  by  Confucius,  the  great 
prophet  of  the  Chinese.  Confucius  was  a  gentleman  whom 
she  had  met  with  in  the  course  of  her  scholarly  browsings, 
and  he  had  a  rule  of  three  for  every  relation  in  the  whole 
social  organism.  He  started  from  without  rather  than  from 
within;  he  believed  that  the  first  step  towards  virtue  is  to 
assume  its  aspect,  and  he  set  down  this  aspect  very  pre 
cisely,  he  left  nothing  undefined.  He  was  the  prophet  of 
the  older  civilization,  as  Mrs.  Bench  was  —  to  Emily  — 
its  priestess  —  a  civilization  older  and  older  and  older ; 
why,  Mrs.  Dench  went  back  to  the  beginning  and  was 
Venus  arisen  from  the  sea.  Emily  had  for  it  David  Barlow's 
authority.  And  Jane  was  the  maiden  chained  to  the  rock. 
Andromeda  the  daughter  of  Venus  ...  To  Emily  belonged 
the  distinction  of  establishing  in  mythology  a  new  relation 
ship. 

in 

"Jane  and  I  pile  ourselves  into  one  of  our  little  cubby 
holes,  and  then  we  have  the  other  for  a*  place  in  which  to 
gaze  at  our  own  souls  undisturbed.  In  a  hotel,  you  know, 
one  is  usually  entirely  occupied  in  gazing  at  other  people's ; 
but  we've  lived  in  a  hotel  so  much  that  other  people's  souls 
have  rather  lost  their  novelty;  while  our  own — "  Mrs. 
Dench  paused. 

Emily  wasn't  sure  that  they  either  of  them  had  a  soul,  and 
she  happened  to  be  entirely  occupied  in  gazing  at  the  soul 


192  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

of  David  Barlow.  That  seemed  a  tangible,  definite  thing; 
and  hadn't  lost  its  novelty.  From  where  she  sat  on  the 
little  gilt-trimmed  sofa  that  Mrs.  Dench  had  brought  with 
her,  in  some  miraculous  manner,  from  Paris,  she  had  a 
fairly  good  opportunity  for  observing  David  Barlow's 
soul  —  at  least  as  much  of  it  as  was  visible  to  the  naked 
eye.  And  it  struck  her  there  was  visible  a  good  deal.  She 
had  sometimes  watched  the  progress  of  food  down  the  trans 
parent  gullet  of  a  young  bird,  and  had  the  same  impression. 
It  seemed  really  as  tangible  and  as  definite  as  that.  The 
hammered  bronze  exterior  was,  after  all,  only  an  exterior. 
Her  imagination  didn't  balk  at  a  bronze  statuette  luminous 
from  within. 

As  David  hovered  over  Mrs.  Dench's  real  Russian  tea- 
service  —  that  part  of  Emily's  prophecy  had  come  true  — 
he  might  have  been  a  young  husband,  invaded  by  friends 
rather  prematurely,  and  doing  the  honors  of  his  new  house 
with  suppressed  excitement.  His  excitement  flashed  forth 
in  bright  sparks  from  underneath  his  apparent  calm  — 
his  apparent  air  of  being  absolutely  at  home.  Any  one 
would  have  been  at  home  in  that  charming,  drapery-hung 
room ;  hung  in  light,  soft,  foreign  stuffs  it  was,  and  the  hotel 
carpet  covered  with  light,  soft  rugs.  A  few  really  good 
pieces  —  a  vase  of  Chinese  porcelain,  a  water  color  at 
tributed  by  many  to  the  great  Watteau  —  were  made  to 
show  to  their  best  advantage ;  and  for  the  rest,  the  common 
place,  dark-stained  furniture  didn't  much  matter.  The 
French  sofa  raised  the  general  level  of  that,  and  there  were 
books  —  books  with  yellow  paper  covers  and  covers  of  limp 
black  leather.  The  limp  black  leather  predominated.  The 
Denches  were  very  religious  in  a  sacerdotal,  ritualistic  sort 


THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN      193 

of  way ;  Jane,  even,  had  serious  leanings  towards  the  Church 
of  Rome.  She  had  contemplated  it  with  wistful  eyes  more 
than  once,  but  on  the  afternoon  in  question  she  seemed  to 
be  more  occupied  in  contemplating  David  Barlow. 

Emily's  regard  encountered  hers,  as  is  natural  when  two 
travel  the  same  road.  Mrs.  Bench's  seemed  also  to  take  that 
direction.  There  was  one  particular  moment,  when  the 
road  towards  the  young  David  was  positively  blocked  with 
gazing,  which  reminded  Emily  of  that  moment  among  a 
box  full  of  ladies  at  a  theatre  when  a  man  appears  in  their 
midst.  They  all  turn  with  their  light,  fine  dresses  and  sweep 
ing  plumes,  and  he  —  black-coated  and  insignificant  — 
awkwardly  receives  their  homage;  the  difference  being 
that  she  and  the  Denches  were  not  in  sweeping  plumes. 
But  it  was  an  occasion  which  deserved  them.  She  had 
saved  up  for  it  all  day  in  order  to  be  bright  and  fresh,  and 
at  the  appointed  hour,  in  a  frock  which  had  memories  of  the 
period  of  the  late  thirties,  and  with  her  sharp  little  nose 
well  powdered,  she  had  walked  down  the  length  of  an  end 
less  corridor  and  made  sure  of  the  number  on  the  door  before 
she  gently  tapped.  The  number  on  a  hotel  door  had  always 
seemed  to  her  an  extraordinarily  unimportant  method  of 
marking  the  difference  between  one  planet  and  another. 
Two  closed  doors,  side  by  side,  and  they  were  as  alike  as 
peas  in  a  pod;  open  them  and  you  had  the  entrances  to 
separate  human  habitations.  She  wondered  if  horses  had 
the  same  sense  of  variety  about  their  stalls. 

She  had  tapped  and  been  told  to  come  in.  She  found 
David  Barlow  already  there,  and  the  graceful,  tangled 
length  of  Jane  filling  the  gilt  sofa.  There  was  a  brief  instant 
before  she  got  to  her  feet,  an  instant  during  which  Emily 


194  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

was  conscious  of  having  come  into  a  warmer  zone.    Some 
thing  had  been  said  or  was  about  to  be  said.    There  was 
an  air  either  of  recovery  or  preparation.     Jane  was  looking 
at  her  mother's  visitor,  and  he  was  looking  at  the  Chinese  ! 
vase  —  though  this  last  was  felt  to  be  merely  by  chance. 

"Mother'll  be  in  directly.  She  was  lying  down,  and  the 
hour  escaped  her.  My  word  !  Aren't  you  smart  ?  Every 
one's  smart  in  America  —  what  becomes  of  the  old 
clothes?"  Jane  ran  through  her  fingers  a  bit  of  the  lace 
of  Emily's  sleeve.  She  herself  had  on  a  white  dress  not 
unlike  the  dress  of  the  projected  vision  —  only  it  wasn't 
starched  and  supposedly  hadn't  shrunk. 

"But  you're  smart,  too;  and  besides,  you're  something 
so  very  much  better  than  smart.  Isn't  she  ?"  Emily  asked 
of  David  Barlow,  but  didn't  kindle  a  responsive  gleam. 
He  explained  —  which  hadn't  been  at  all  apparent  —  that 
he  was  trying  to  start  the  lamp  for  tea. 

"Won't  it  light?" 

"It  will  light,  but  I  don't  think  there's  enough  alcohol." 

"I'd  help  you,"  said  Jane,  "but  I  don't  really  know  any 
thing  about  it;  I've  never  —  " 

"Jane  mustn't  touch  it !"  Mrs.  Dench  came  in  —  "She'd 
blow  herself  into  a  thousand  bits.  Here,  —  I  happen  to 
understand  it,  —  let  me." 

"  You've  seen  it  used  in  its  native  land  ?  " 

"Often  and  often.  Don't  you  remember,  Jane,  that 
afternoon  at  the  princess's  when  Mr.  Parrish  and  Mme. 
Rostov  were  at  the  height  of  their  affair?" 

"And  Mr.  Parrish  dropped  his  cup  and  it  spilled  all  over 
Mme.  Rostov's  gown?  Of  course  I  remember." 

Mrs.  Dench  made  an  odd  transition.     "Mme.  Rostov's 


195 

husband  has  the  best  manners  of  any  man  I  ever  saw.  He 
talked  to  me  about  Egyptian  religion  the  entire  afternoon." 

"Let  us  all  immediately  talk  to  you  about  Egyptian 
religion,"  said  David. 

"It  wouldn't  signify  —  now.  But  if  you  were  married, 
David,  and  your  wife  were  brazenly  flirting  with  a  good- 
looking  young  American !  —  Well,  M.  Rostov  had  just 
reached  that  part  of  the  'The  Book  of  the  Dead'  where 
the  heart  is  weighed  in  the  balance  with  Truth,  when — • 
smash  —  went  Mr.  Parrish's  cup.  He  of  the  manners  didn't 
move  an  eyelash —  'Ah  —  your  countryman! — '  and 
then  the  heart  and  Truth  went  on." 

"The  princess  always  made  her  own  tea,"  said  Jane; 
"she  was  very  proud  of  it,  and  it  seemed  —  that  broken 
cup  —  a  frightful  waste;  but  Mr.  Parrish  was  so  beauti 
fully  apologetic." 

"Mr.  Parrish  was  so  beautifully  everything.  I  entirely 
sympathized  with  Mme.  Rostov.  It  was  one  of  the  most 
complicated  bits  of  her  complicated  little  life;  but  if  I 
had  the  chance  of  a  man  like  that,  I'd  be  complicated,  too." 

"Ah  —  mother  —  if  you  had  the  chance  — " 

"He  looked,"  Mrs.  Dench  said  to  Emily,  "the  way  Apollo 
ought  to  have  looked,  but  didn't.  His  eyes  were  the  most 
extraordinary  slaty  blue. " 

It  was  at  this  point  that  David  gave  tongue:  "You 
know,  Ralph  Parrish  is  Miss  Stedman's  cousin.  They  were 
brought  up  side  by  side." 

Emily  verified  the  news.  "Yes,  I  shouldn't  have  let 
you  talk  on  without  telling  you.  I'd  apologize  if  I  had  the 
faintest  kind  of  an  excuse  to  offer.  It  was  one  of  those 
unaccountable  lapses  —  " 


196  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"Not  at  all,  the  fault  was  ours.  It  only  shows  what  I've 
always  said  to  you,  Jane, — only  this  time  I  didn't  practise 
what  I  preached;  —  how  unsafe  it  is  to  gossip.  Not  that 
we  really  had  anything  to  gossip  about.  In  Europe," 
Mrs.  Bench  explained  to  Miss  Stedman,  "there  are  certain 
things  which  are  regarded  differently  —  we  have,  over  there, 
a  tendency  towards  a  broader  view  — " 

"A  view  of  which  Americans  in  Europe  take  advan 
tage?  " 

"To  a  certain  extent  —  yes  —  the  thing  is  unavoidable. 
One's  eye  becomes  accustomed,  just  as  in  Paris  one's  eye 
becomes  accustomed  to  the  made-up  faces  of  the  women 
and  the  queer,  tight  clothes  of  the  men."  It  was  charm 
ing  of  the  diplomat's  widow  so  to  put  herself  in  the  mere 
travelling  American's  place,  and  also  to  make  Ralph  Par- 
rish's  excuses  at  the  same  time  that  she  made  her  own. 
"When  a  man's  as  handsome  as  your  cousin,  why,  what 
will  you  have?  Every  woman  on  the  spot  is  sure  to  be 
mad  about  him,  and  he'd  be  but  a  poor,  inhuman  stick  if 
he  didn't  occasionally  respond.  You  won't  lay  it  up  against 
him,  you  won't  perhaps  mention?  You  see,  we're  very 
good  friends  with  him  —  he  just  now  happened  to  be  on  the 
same  steamer  with  us  coming  back,  —  the  intimacy  one  gets 
into  on  a  steamer  is  proverbial,  —  and  we  should  hate  to 
have  him  think  we'd  been  telling  tales  out  of  school." 

Emily  assured  Mrs.  Bench  that  he'd  never  have  the 
chance  to  think  anything  of  the  sort.  It  could  very  well 
pass  without  reference.  In  fact,  she  didn't  know  when  she 
would  see  her  cousin  again;  New  York  and  business  would 
probably  hold  him  for  many  months  to  come. 

"But  Ocean  City's  surely  not  too  far  for  a  Sunday's 


THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN       197 

visit  ?  We  were  given  to  understand  that  to  be  one  of  its 
chief  attractions."  Mrs.  Dench  waited. 

"Ralph  doesn't  even  know  I'm  here,  unless  his  mother 
has  told  him.  We're  both  abominable  correspondents. 
He  wrote  me  the  merest  line,  and  I  haven't  yet  got  round  to 
answering  it.  But  of  what  am  I  thinking  ?  He'll  be  down 
to  see  you  —  of  course  — " 

"It's  just  possible.  But  you  know  the  fleeting  nature  of 
the  intimacy  one  gets  into  on  a  steamer  —  that's  also 
proverbial." 

David  Barlow,  having  set  the  ball  rolling  by  his  mention 
of  the  tie  existing  between  the  absent  and  the  present,  had 
been  content  to  rest  upon  his  laurels.  He  now,  however, 
considered  that  the  ball  had  rolled  far  enough.  He  thought 
to  change  its  direction:  "Parrish  is  such  a  striking  chap; 
once  having  known  him,  even  on  a  steamer,  it  would  be 
hard  to  forget  him.  At  least,  the  impression  he  would  leave 
wouldn't  be  fleeting.  There's  something  —  something  al 
most  conspicuous  — " 

Emily  laughed.  "Oh,  don't  be  afraid.  He's  quite 
frankly  conspicuous." 

"Conspicuous,"  added  David,  "in  a  very  delightful 
way." 

"You're  right  in  defining  the  sort  of  conspicuousness," 
Mrs.  Dench  put  in,  "there  are  so  many  sorts.  Jane,  here, 
finds  it  conspicuous  that  we  see  so  much  of  you !" 

It  came,  a  bolt  from  heaven  —  a  pistol-shot  in  a  quiet 
street.  It  brought  them  straight  from  Ralph  Parrish  to 
David  Barlow,  from  Russia  to  Ocean  City,  from  what  was 
for  most  of  them  a  somewhat  distant  afternoon  to  an  after 
noon  as  little  distant  as  it  is  possible  for  an  afternoon  to  be. 


198  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

It  brought  Emily  from  an  enforced  digging  among  her 
newly  buried  treasure  to  a  sniffing  of  the  flowers  which  had 
fast  grown  up  in  the  enriched  soil  which  covered  it.  Her 
manners  must  have  suffered  by  comparison  with  M.  Ros 
tov's. 

"As  if  any  one,"  Mrs.  Bench  went  on  to  David,  "could 
possibly  mind  our  seeing  you  !  As  if  we  cared  whether  they 
minded  or  not !  And  yet  Jane  objects  —  in  her  opinion 
it's  conspicuous !" 

Jane's  brows  were  cloudy.  "That's  what  I  was  telling 
him,  mother,  just  before  Miss  Stedman  came  in."  Jane 
showed  a  certain  seemly  distaste  for  linen  publicly  washed. 
Her  mother  vigorously  scrubbed  it  with  an  utter  forgetful- 
ness  of  the  sensibilities  of  the  passer.  Though  in  this  case, 
the  only  passer  was  Emily  Stedman.  She  had  sometimes 
seen  the  presence  of  a  young  child  similarly  disregarded. 

Mrs.  Bench  didn't  really  forget  her,  however.  She  gave 
her  a  cup  of  tea  before  she  replied  to  Jane.  "  You  say  you 
were  telling  him,  Jane  ?  It  strikes  me  it's  hardly  your  affair. 
If  an  old  lady  like  me  —  battered  and  worn  as  I  am  — 
isn't  capable  of  looking  after  herself  and  her  family,  why, 
I  should  be  greatly  surprised.  I've  somehow  always  man 
aged  it  abroad." 

"America  isn't  abroad." 

The  diplomat's  widow  smiled.  "Jane's  crazy  about 
America." 

Bavid  Barlow's  regard  had  again  turned  to  the  Chinese 
vase.  He  was  looking  closely  at  its  smooth,  porcelain  sur 
face,  evidently  in  a  vain  effort  to  decipher  some  characters 
deep  under  the  glaze.  It  seemed  he  had  the  talent  they 
all  found  so  useful  —  the  ability  completely  to  detach  him- 


THE  REMAEKABLE  YOUNG  MAN      199 

self,  to  sit  unmoved  in  the  midst  of  battle.  He  now  turned 
and  faced  it.  "America's  a  pretty  good  place.  It  never 
occurred  to  you,  Miss  Stedman,  that  it  might  appear  out  of 
the  way?" 

"America  out  of  the  way?  " 

"  No,  the  Benches  and  myself." 

"Why,  of  course  not !" 

When  Emily  left  them,  David  Barlow  was  still  there. 
He  was  a  valuable,  brittle  object  —  as  valuable  as  any  they 
possessed.  She  feared  his  breakage.  And  in  case  of  that, 
who  would  there  be  to  gather  up  the  bits  ? 

rv 

Emily  had  said  on  leaving  that  she  was  bound  straight 
for  her  own  room.  She  pleaded  letters  and  sewing.  But 
instead  of  that  she  went  straight  downstairs.  Solitude 
didn't  attract  her;  and  her  solitude,  she  felt  sure,  would  be 
too  greatly  populated;  she  didn't  feel  herself  up  to  coping 
with  it.  Even  as  it  was,  in  spite  of  the  backs  and  profiles 
of  bridge-playing  ladies  and  the  occasional  passing  of  a  bell 
boy,  she  still  could  see  the  clouded  brows  of  Jane,  her 
mother's  easy,  all-including  smile,  and  little  David  Barlow 
—  clear  and  fine  and  surrounded  by  women  as  a  wrecked 
sailor  by  water.  It  was  partly  in  his  defence  that  she  had 
come  away;  he  had  seemed  to  be  having  trouble  enough 
without  her.  It  is  true  she  had  looked  over  her  shoulder, 
but  her  look  fed  on  emptiness;  he  hadn't  followed  her.  If 
he  had,  Jane  and  her  mother  could  have  fought  it  out  be 
tween  them. 

She  wasn't  sure  exactly  what  it  was  they  were  to  fight. 
Her  more  vivid  vision  was  of  David  and  herself.  She  al- 


200  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

ways  had  the  last,  and  the  vision  of  David  of  late  spent  a 
great  deal  of  its  time  perched  upon  her  shoulder.  Some 
times  the  feel  of  it  there  amounted  almost  to  a  physical 
consciousness  of  weight.  It  was  manifestly  unfair  that 
a  mere  chance  acquaintance  should  so  install  himself. 
Though  as  for  that,  wasn't  every  acquaintance  —  conse 
quently  every  friend,  every  one  save  those  bound  by  ties 
of  blood  —  tossed  to  us  by  chance  ?  Emily  wondered  at 
the  omnipotence  of  the  Fates,  and  was  brought  back  sharply 
by  a  kick  from  the  perching  vision.  It  clamored  and 
sported  with  nothing  to  say  it  nay,  the  Benches  its  welcome 
playmates.  A  jostling  human  mass  would  have  been  far 
less  insistent;  and  a  jostling  human  mass  was  just  what 
Ocean  City,  at  that  season,  prided  itself  upon  lacking. 
Later,  when  the  crowd  arrived,  it  would  be  a  very  different 
story  ;  but  now  it  was  all  long  stretches  and  empty  spaces 
and  a  cleanliness  which  verged  on  the  medicinal. 

Emily  went  to  the  window.  The  ocean  was  gray  and 
opaque  and  pricked  by  flurries  of  snow.  It  struck  her  with 
a  sense  of  relief  that  the  place  was  vulnerable  to  such  a  thing 
as  weather.  It  had  been  so  made  to  order  —  so  uniformly 
mild  and  sunny  —  and  here  was  a  southeasterly  storm 
of  the  sort  that  must  have  existed  since  the  beginning  of 
time.  Civilization  was  powerless  in  the  face  of  it.  She 
could  hear  faintly,  through  the  inner,  the  rattling  of  the 
outer  window  glass,  and  far  out  to  sea  —  a  mere  speck  on 
the  dim  horizon  —  a  little  fishing-boat  was  fighting  the 
elements.  To-morrow  there  might  be  a  wreck.  There  had 
been  some  early  in  the  winter  with  strange  objects  washed 
in  shore.  But  she  had  begun  to  think  that,  too,  a  myth — a 
pleasant,  or  unpleasant,  fiction.  Except  her  visions,  every- 


THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN       201 

thing  was  doubtful,  everything  mythical.  They  were  real 
and  solid,  and  the  most  real  of  all  was  taking  advantage  of 
the  growing  dimness  to  bother  her  again.  If  it  hadn't  been 
for  the  necessitated  change  of  costume  and  the  nearness  of 
dinner,  she  would  have  gone  out  into  the  storm.  The  salt 
wind  and  the  surf  and  the  stinging  snow  might  have  broken 
the  image  in  her  heart.  In  her  concern  with  the  aspect  of 
the  bright  morning  hour  when  she  walked  with  the  Benches 
and  David,  she  had  forgotten  the  aspect  of  hours  less  bright 
—  forgotten,  at  last,  all  other  aspects  but  that  of  Mrs. 
Dench's  wonderful,  jewel-like  room  and  its  great  civilized 
setting. 

But  if  she  had  gone  out,  she  would  have  missed  seeing 
Jane,  and  seeing  Jane  was  a  pleasure  she  never  knowingly 
missed.  She  turned  from  the  window  to  find  her  close,  and 
looking  at  her  in  a  preoccupied  fashion  —  much  as  David, 
a  while  before,  had  looked  at  the  Chinese  vase.  She  must 
have  blinked  a  little  as  her  eyes  encountered  the  light,  for 
the  first  thing  Jane  said  was  to  ask  if  she  were  sleepy. 

"  Sleepy  ?  Never  less  so !  And  what  are  you  doing  so 
far  from  your  own  fireside?" 

"I  don't  possess  one.  What,  might  one  ask,  are  you 
doing  so  far  from  yours?" 

"I  don't  possess  one,  either." 

"I  think  there  isn't  one  in  the  house,"  said  Jane;  "this 
whole  place  is  heated  in  the  most  remarkable  manner  by  a 
system  of  pipes." 

Emily  ventured  that  the  term,  'fireside/  might  not  imply 
the  presence  of  the  actual  blaze,  and  Jane  didn't  refute  her. 

"  You  see,"  she  went  on,  "  even  if  I  had  a  fireside, — a  real 
one, — it  wouldn't  really  be  mine.  I'm  not  of  age,  and  noth- 


202  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

ing  belongs  to  you  till  you're  of  age.  It's  held  in  trust. 
I  know  all  about  that !  There  are  the  most  beautiful  things 
being  held  in  trust  for  me  —  a  necklace  that  belonged  to 
my  grandmother  Bench,  and  money  enough  to  buy  a  cat 
and  some  knitting  yarn  and  a  little  house  somewhere  in  the 
very  centre  of  America  —  Ohio,  probably.  Ah  —  then  I'll 
have  a  fireside !  I'll  ask  you  to  visit  me,  which  I'm  sure 
you'll  love." 

"And  what  will  you  have  done  with  your  mother?" 

"Oh  —  mother!"  Jane  gave  the  first  note  of  a  laugh  — 
"mother  hates  Ohio.  She  was  born  there." 

"And  you  were  born  in  Vienna?" 

"Yes  —  how  did  you  guess?  Did  David  tell  you? 
David's  a  darling,  isn't  he?  We're  the  very  best  friends  in 
the  world,  he  and  I.  Of  course,  he's  terribly  young  — not 
that  he  isn't  years  and  years  older  than  I  — "  She  made 
another  uncompleted  attempt  at  laughter.  "We  were 
cruising  about  the  Mediterranean  and  anchored  off  Cyprus 
—  to  get  coal,  I  think  it  was  —  when  we  first  discovered 
him.  We  were  on  the  Duchess  de  Clopin's  yacht  and  the 
Princess  Karina,  whom  you  said  you  knew,  was  there  too. 
The  princess  got  bored  —  it  was  rather  her  habit.  Her 
boredom  finally  reached  a  point  when  something  had  to  be 
done ;  and  we  welcomed  the  relief  promised  by  the  Barlows' 
yacht,  anchored  close  by,  and  also  with  coal  as  an  aim.  We 
didn't  know  it  belonged  to  them, — I'm  afraid  if  we  had,  we 
wouldn't  have  been  any  wiser,  —  but  it  ended  by  mother's 
writing  a  note,  using  the  princess's  name  as  a  sort  of  excuse 
for  our  impudence.  The  result  was  the  Barlows,  in  the  most 
marvellous  little  tender,  all  glistening  brass;  and  sitting  in 
the  bow,  a  little  apart,  his  dark  head  bare,  was  David. 


THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN      203 

I  think  from  his  pleasure  that  he'd  been  bored,  too."  Jane 
opened  wide  her  long,  slim  hands.  "  Seeing  him  now  — 
pale  and  drawn  —  you  can't  imagine  him  as  he  was  then 
—  bronzed  from  that  tropical  sun  — " 

"But  I  can !  —  I  can  perfectly  — " 

"Ah  —  you  can?"  Jane  was  reckless.  "He's  been 
through  so  much  —  he's  been  put  through  so  much  — " 

"So  much?" 

"Paper  hoops,"  said  Jane,  "the  sort  they  have  at  the 
circus.  They're  pink  and  yellow,  and  sometimes  green,  and 
the  pony  gallops  on  as  hard  as  ever  he  can  and  the  clown 
jumps  through  and  lands  on  the  pony's  back  again  all  safe 
and  sound.  The  ring-master  cracks  his  whip — " 

David  Barlow  had  said  that  Jane  was  quiet.  If  this  was 
what  he  called  quiet  —  she  was  wound  up  as  tightly  as  an 
eight-day  clock,  and  all  her  talk  had  barely  loosened  the 
springs. 

"You  regard  Mr.  Barlow  as  a  clown ?"  Emily  asked. 

"Oh,  not  a  bit !  A  clown's  awkward  and  ugly,  while 
David  —  With  some  women  if  a  man's  small,  it  goes  with 
out  saying  they  don't  think  him  handsome.  Now,  with 
me — "  she  paused,  "with  me  a  small  man's  absolutely 
fatal.  That  sounds  as  if  my  experience  of  them  had  been 
vast,  which  isn't  at  all  the  impression  I  wish  to  convey, 
is  it  ?  When  I'm  firmly  settled  in  my  little  Ohio  house,  I 
should  hate  to  look  back  on  a  varicolored  past.  Though 
I  assure  you  it  could  have  been  varicolored  if  people  hadn't 
been  so  afraid  of  mother.  She's  taken  care  of  me  in  the 
most  masterly  manner.  Why,  I've  never  even  been  in 
love !  And  I've  never,  never,"  she  was  smilingly  bent  on 
carrying  things  lightly  —  "had  any  one  hi  love  with  me." 


204  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"Why,  your  path  must  be  strewn  with  prostrate  forms  — 
and  what  of  the  people  afraid  of  your  mother?" 

"They  don't  count." 

"In  a  list  of  victims  they  should  count.  Even  the  clerk 
at  the  desk  —  the  scrubby  young  man  who's  there  in  the 
afternoon  —  is  transfixed  when  you  go  by." 

"Ah  —  that's  because  I  go  by!  Mother  once  said  a 
clever  thing  about  me  —  she's  always  saying  clever  things  — 
and  they're  mostly  about  me  —  she  said  I  was  a  decorative 
impression.  A  decorative  impression — '  Jane  repeated 
it  slowly  and  turned  on  her  new  friend  her  still  laughing 
face.  "  Doesn't  it  hit  me  off  to  a  dot  ?  " 

How  long  it  was  that  Emily  stood  there  by  the  window 
after  Jane  had  left  her,  she  couldn't  have  begun  to  say. 
But  as  she  went  in  to  dinner  rather  later  than  usual,  it  must 
have  been  for  some  time.  Perhaps  she  wandered  about  a 
little  and  then  came  back,  for  she  had  the  distinct  remem 
brance  of  Jane  stooping  low  over  a  bookcase  —  a  bookcase 
which  was  not  visible  from  her  place  by  the  window. 
She  couldn't  drive  out  an  impression  she  had  caught  —  the 
same  that  had  made  her  quite  impertinently  ask  what 
Jane  was  doing  so  far  from  her  own  fireside.  She  had  had 
the  air  of  being  very  far  indeed  —  and  without  sufficient 
cause ;  the  air  of  aimless  waiting  with  which  she  might  have 
whiled  away  an  unexpected  hour  at  a  railway  station.  It 
was  a  little  as  if  she  had  been  rather  perfunctorily  obeying  a 
command  to  run  along  and  play.  "  If  your  mother  and  her 
visitor  are  taking  up  the  parlor  that  should  by  rights  be  as 
much  yours  as  theirs, —  why,  come  to  me !  I  haven't  a 
Russian  tea-service  and  I  haven't  a  beautiful  sofa,  but  I've 
crackers  and  jam  and  a  fairly  comfortable  lounge.  It  will 


THE  REMARKABLE  YOUNG  MAN       205 

be  the  cosiest  sort  of  a  time  —  two  little  girls  together." 
There  was  a  moment  when  Emily  had  considered  saying  it. 
If  there  had  been  anything  that  she  could  have  really 
done  for  Jane,  —  any  way  in  which  she  could  have  really 
eased  her  pain,  —  she  would  have  been  too  glad.  But  she 
feared  she  might  prove  but  a  clumsy  comforter,  and  her 
instinct  of  self-preservation  verged  on  habit.  She  was 
going  through  enough  on  her  own  account.  Like  David 
Barlow,  she  had  her  stint  of  paper  hoops,  and  she  was  tense 
with  exertion.  But  David  had  youth  and  probably  no 
perching  visions ;  Jane  also  was  possessed  of  the  same  asset 
and  the  same  lack.  As  for  the  first,  Miss  Stedman  was  in 
clined,  in  the  presence  of  so  much  of  it,  to  overestimate  its 
value.  The  second  —  the  lack  of  the  perching  visions  — 
was  not  a  proven  fact.  The  two  who  had  youth  might  have 
them  also,  —  they  might  be  haunted  and  harassed  as  much 
as  she,  Jane  by  David's  and  David  by  the  vision  of  Mrs. 
Dench,  —  a  heavier  load  than  any  —  the  very  apex  of 
visions. 


CHAPTER  X 

MOTHER  AND  SON 


RALPH  PARRISH  was  sitting  in  his  room  at  the  Town 
Club  surrounded  by  all  the  paraphernalia  of  travel.  A  rug, 
an  umbrella,  and  a  cane  were  made  to  form  one  of  those 
happy  families  of  circus  tradition.  A  half-emptied  bag 
lay  open  upon  the  floor.  A  trunk,  strapped  and  locked, 
stood  against  the  wall  where  the  expressman,  assisted  by  one 
of  the  Club  porters,  had  lately  set  it  down.  The  end  nearest 
Parrish  was  well  posted  over  with  labels  of  foreign  hotels  and 
steamship  companies  and  railways;  they  were  the  neces 
sary  final  touch  to  the  bright  checker-board  beauty  of  its  ex 
terior —  the  labels  of  wisdom  without  which  a  trunk  is 
merely  a  receptacle  for  possessions.  This  one  was  especially 
designed  for  foreign  travel  —  it  had  lightness  combined 
with  strength,  and  a  hard,  polished  surface  impervious 
to  any  but  the  most  insistent  scratches.  And  of  these 
there  were  but  few ;  as  few  —  almost  —  as  those  maintained 
by  its  possessor.  His  was  a  surface  equally  impervious; 
and  it  was  just  because  of  this,  just  because  of  his  hardness 
and  his  polish,  that  labels  and  scratches  affected  him  in 
very  much  the  same  manner  —  they  were  the  necessary 
completion  of  his  newness  —  they  made  him  fitter  and 
readier  than  ever. 

He  sat  there  in  his  room  at  the  Town  Club  staring  about 

206 


MOTHER  AND   SON  207 

at  the  visible  signs  of  his  journeying.  It  was  only  their 
number  and  variety  that  withheld  his  attention  from  those 
less  visible.  He  was,  at  best,  little  given  to  introspection, 
and  he  now  stopped  short  at  a  consciousness  of  fatigue. 
It  was  as  near  to  fatigue  as  he  ever  remembered  to  have 
come.  Never  before,  surely,  had  oak  supported  by  steel 
yielded  to  his  tread  hi  simulation  of  a  ship's  motion ;  and 
never  before  had  the  glare  of  a  bright  March  morning,  re 
flected  upward  from  melting  snow,  translated  itself  in  his 
mind's  eye  to  the  glare  of  blue  water.  It  was  Sunday, 
and  the  wide  avenue  down  which  his  windows  faced  was 
filled  with  people  on  their  way  to  church.  They  walked 
slowly,  in  ordered  groups  of  twos  and  threes,  and  Parrish 
caught  the  masculine  gleam  of  silk  hats  and  the  glimmer  of 
feminine  plumes.  They  seemed  prepared  to  take  their 
worship  calmly,  more  as  a  relaxation  than  an  inspiration, 
a  sedative  rather  than  a  stimulant.  It  was  a  part  of  the 
day's  rest  and  a  proven  refutation  of  American  excitability. 
Parrish,  fresh  from  Europe,  was  in  a  position  to  make 
comparisons. 

He  would  have  been,  that  is,  if  he  hadn't  been  far  too 
busy.  He  had  spent  the  previous  day  surrounded  by 
customhouse  officials  and  furs  and  the  personal  effects  of 
the  Benches,  who  were  returning  to  their  own  land  with 
the  accumulation  of  twenty  years.  There  had  been  dinner 
at  the  Palazzo  Hotel,  and  after  that  the  dauntless  travellers 
had  taken  in  a  theatre.  They  had  risen  at  what  seemed 
close  on  Sunday's  dawn,  however,  and  by  dint  of  a  Hercu 
lean  effort  the  feminine  members  of  the  little  trio  had  car 
ried  out  their  original  intention  and  left  for  Ocean  City  — 
their  accumulations  attached  and  uninjured.  Parrish  was 


208  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

newly  from  this  as  he  sat  in  his  room  at  the  Town  Club, 
gazing  about  him.  He  had  little  more  than  time  to  catch 
a  train  which  would  get  him  to  Boston  late  that  afternoon. 
He  would  have  several  hours  in  which  to  see  his  mother, 
who  herself  was  on  the  eve  of  spreading  her  wings  for  Horn- 
mouth,  and  by  starting  from  Boston  at  midnight  he  would 
be  back  in  New  York  and  could  count  on  reaching  the  office 
of  his  firm  of  wholesale  fur  dealers  early  Monday  morning. 
He  had  rung  for  a  servant  to  help  him  repack  his  bag,  and 
his  speculations,  his  perceptions  of  the  visible  and  invisible 
signs  of  his  journeying,  were  all  confined  to  the  moment  that 
he  waited  for  an  answer  to  his  ring.  It  was  a  moment 
like  the  islands  of  safety  in  the  middle  of  the  crowded 
boulevards  of  the  city  he  had  come  from. 

He  rose  and  stretched  his  arms  above  his  head.  He 
didn't  really  wish  to  go  to  Boston.  The  temptation  not  to 
was  as  strong  as  any  of  those  with  which  he  had  lately 
dealt.  But  if  he  yielded  —  if  he  didn't  go  —  it  would  be  a 
question  of  going  to  Hornmouth,  and  that  couldn't  be  for  a 
disgracefully  long  time  —  two  weeks,  certainly.  His 
mother  expected  him ;  it  was  his  duty  not  to  disappoint  her. 
But  his  duty  —  or  rather  his  sense  of  it  —  was  weakened  by 
his  fatigue.  It  was  a  fatigue  moral  as  well  as  physical; 
and  to  face  Mrs.  Parrish's  mild  eye,  to  submit  to  and  return 
her  maternal  embrace,  to  tell  her  glibly  all  his  news  and  to 
lend  a  sympathetic  ear  to  hers  —  it  was  too  great  a  strain 
for  his  fatigue  to  bear.  He  longed  for  the  simple  refresh 
ment  to  his  soul  given  by  a  Sunday  spent  in  the  smoking- 
room  of  the  Town  Club,  surrounded  by  those  of  his  own  sex 
and  age  and  occupation, — his  own  sex,  especially.  His 
world  of  late  had  been  too  exclusively  peopled  by  women. 


MOTHER  AND   SON  209 

He  even  welcomed  with  uncommon  friendliness  the  man 
who  came  to  assist  him  with  his  bag  —  not,  thank  heaven, 
English.  He  thanked  heaven  that  the  Town  Club  had  the 
independence  of  its  nationality,  and  gave  the  preference  of 
its  employment  to  the  native  born.  Parrish  characterized 
foreign  servants  by  a  round  American  adjective.  Perfected 
in  service  by  the  practice  of  generations,  with  a  knowledge 
of  their  place  gained  in  the  same  manner,  they  nevertheless 
were  the  owners  of  begging,  extended  palms  that  Parrish 
compared  unfavorably  with  the  fair  remuneration  for  value 
received  of  his  native  land.  And  was  it  such  an  advantage 
—  that  knowledge  of  place  ?  —  even  though  one  greatly 
sought  ...  He  preferred  the  uncertainty  of  democracy. 

The  man  who  was  packing  his  bag  asked  him  how  he  had 
liked  Paris.  "You've  been  there  before,  sir,  haven't  you? 
It  must  be  a  grand  place.  I  wouldn't  mind  going  there 
myself  some  day  —  get  some  gentleman  who  wanted  some 
one  to  look  after  him.  But  I  expect  those  situations  is 
generally  given  to  ones  who  can  'parlez-vous.'  I  have  a 
friend  who  can  talk  French  just  like  a  Pareesian,  and  he 
got  a  situation  to  go  all  around  the  world  with  one  of  our 
wealthiest  millionnaires.  He  sent  me  a  postal  from  India." 
There  was  a  pause  and  a  smile  of  reminiscence  —  "It 
wasn't  a  patch,  though,  to  the  postal  he  sent  me  from  Paris. 
It  was  as  much  as  my  reputation  was  worth.  The  fellows 
downstairs  was  all  guying  me.  It  was  something  fierce." 
He  of  the  endangered  reputation  had  his  head  buried  in 
Parrish's  now  opened  trunk,  and  he  presently  emerged  with 
his  search  rewarded.  "There  —  you'd  better  take  two 
collars,  hadn't  you  ?  Something  fierce  .  .  .  Over  here  the 
police  would  have  been  down  on  the  store  that  sold  it  like 


210  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

a  flash  —  but  there  .  .  .  From  what  I've  heard  I  wonder 
if  they  have  any  police."  There  followed  an  anecdote  told 
behind  a  shielding  hand. 

"It's  a  different  point  of  view,"  said  Parrish. 

"Yes,  I  guess  that  must  be  it.  But  you  only  touched 
the  high  places,  I  expect.  You  can  hardly  tell  about  things 
of  that  sort." 

Parrish  smiled.  "Your  friend  who  sent  the  post-card 
could,  without  doubt,  tell  more.  But  do  you  think  that 
post-cards  don't  exist  in  the  high  places?" 

"  Oh,  I'd  never  think  that,  sir.  I've  lately  been  reading  a 
book  about  the  wickedness  of  the  European  aristocracy. 
I  always  knew  that  even  dukes  and  duchesses  wasn't  above 
their  little  bit  of  fun.  Why,  even  here — well,  we  Americans 
don't  let  any  too  much  get  by  us  —  but  we've  always  got 
the  police." 

"You  believe  in  the  police,  George?" 

"Why,  without  the  police  where  would  you  and  I 
be?" 

Parrish  had  turned  to  the  window  and  was  again  looking 
out.  "It's  one  of  the  few  questions  I've  never  asked  my 
self,  George.  And  yet  —  indirectly  —  it's  the  police  that 
are  forcing  me  to  take  the  noon  train  for  Boston.  Oh, 
don't  be  alarmed;  I'm  not  an  escaping  criminal !  There's 
such  a  thing  as  the  police  of  our  own  consciences." 

George  took  a  liberty.  "  I  don't  ever  recollect  your  having 
talked  like  this  before,  sir !" 

Parrish  transgressed  all  the  rules  of  etiquette  and  taste. 
"It's  the  result  of  too  much  feminine  society,  George." 

George  took  it  concretely,  "One  of  those  Pareesians  — 
I  know  the  sort.     But  I  never  heard  —  I  never  heard  of 


MOTHER  AND   SON  211 

their  affecting  a  gentleman  like  that."  He  suddenly 
straightened  himself  from  his  packing.  He  had  the 
dawn  of  an  idea,  and  cursed  his  former  thick-headedness. 
"Wouldn't  you  like  a  bromo  and  seltzer,  sir,  before  you 
go  to  the  station?" 

"You  seem  to  think  I'm  drunk,"  said  Parrish,  and  looked 
about  for  his  hat. 

n 

Ralph  Parrish  never  appeared  so  altogether  charming  as 
when  he  bent  his  strength  in  the  service  of  the  weak. 
Especially  was  this  true  of  him  when  he  did  so  in  the  service 
of  his  mother.  Mrs.  Parrish  was  in  her  later  years  a  rather 
spare  little  woman  with  a  mild  eye  and  carefully  dressed 
gray  hair.  She  had  brought  up  her  son  the  way  he  should 
go,  and  now  she  could  fold  her  hands  and  reap  the  fruits  of 
her  labor.  What  wonder  if  he  knew  how  to  assist  her  with 
her  wrap  —  forestalling  in  that  office  the  head  waiter  of  the 
big  Boston  hotel ;  what  wonder  if  his  manner  as  they  entered 
together  the  dining  room  contained  just  the  right  shades  of 
•deference,  affection,  and  respect  ? 

They  were  dining  at  a  hotel,  not  because  his  mother's 
friends  hadn't  extended  their  hospitality  to  include  him, 
but  because  there  they  would  have  a  better  opportunity 
to  talk  than  would  be  possible  at  a  family  dinner-table. 
There  would  be  so  much  to  say.  Even  in  the  scanty  hour 
which  had  elapsed  since  the  arrival  of  Ralph's  train,  so 
much  had  been  said,  and  Mrs.  Parrish  was  still  eager.  The 
tie  between  the  mother  and  son  was  a  singularly  close  one. 
Mrs.  Parrish  had  beneath  her  mildness  a  certain  brute 
courage,  and  Ralph  had  beneath  his  strength  a  certain  mild- 


212  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

ness —  an  aspect  almost  domesticated.  Perhaps  it  is  his 
most  domesticated  aspect  which  is  here  most  insisted  upon, 
and  it  is  an  aspect  to  which  the  least  mild  of  men  often  lend 
themselves  best.  A  bull  in  a  china-shop  picks  his  way  as 
daintily  as  may  be.  They  know,  somehow — the  barbarians, 
the  men  of  iron — and  even  without  a  mother's  training — 
how  to  arrange  a  wrap  and  place  a  chair.  Ralph  placed 
his  mother's  with  such  extreme  care  that  that  lady  looked  up 
at  him  with  questioning  eyes. 

"Ralph,  dear,  if  it  wasn't  for  the  fact  that  you  have  in 
finitely  more  money  than  I,  I  should  say  that  you  were  pre 
paring  the  way  for  a  ten-dollar  bill.  Is  there  anything 
which  I  can  do?  You  know  that  what's  mine  is  yours; 
and  if  it's  my  right  hand  you  want,  cut  off  at  the  wrist,  or 
the  house  at  Hornmouth  or  the  sudden  death  of  any  of  our 
friends,  why,  come  to  me !" 

Ralph  laughed .     ' '  What  a  bloodthirsty  mother  you  are ! ' ' 

She  answered  him  irrelevantly.  "You  know  you're 
not  looking  well.  You've  lost  ten  pounds." 

"Most  people  would  call  it  an  improvement.  Lost  ten 
pounds,  and  you  suggest  that  you  lend  me  ten  dollars  —  it's 
manifestly  unfair.  But  you're  wrong  as  you  can  be ;  I  swear 
that  I  never  felt  better,  and  I've  no  awful  secret  —  if  that's 
what  you  mean.  I  left  no  wife  pining  for  me  on  the  coast 
of  France,  and  I  haven't  spent  and  wasted  my  substance  in 
the  gambling  hells  of  Europe.  In  fact,  I've  managed  to 
make  of  my  trip  a  very  good  thing  —  financially  and  from 
the  viewpoint  of  a  vacation.  Now  I've  told  you  all  the 
news  —  all." 

"You've  been  too  good  about  telling  me  —  and  I  should 
never  ask  your  confidence.  What  right  have  I  to  the  con- 


MOTHER  AND   SON  213 

fidence  of  a  man  full-grown  in  mind  and  body,  a  human 
being  with  a  hundred  times  my  capability  and  a  thousand 
times  my  experience  ?" 

"It's  not  a  question  of  right;  and  besides,  you've  all  the 
right  in  the  world.  Let  me  see,  I  think  I've  told  you  about 
the  lovely  girl  on  the  steamer  and  her  most  amusing 
mother  ?  They  were  the  sort  of  pair  that  made  me  wish 
I  possessed  the  reproductive  faculty  of  the  artist  —  im 
mensely  typical  —  coming  back  to  their  own  country  after 
an  absence  of  years  for  the  very  good  reason  that  over  there 
a  girl  without  money  stands  so  little  chance." 

"So  little  chance?" 

"Yes,  of  marrying." 

"You  mean  they  discussed  it  with  you?" 

"  I'm  afraid  they  did  —  or  at  least  Mrs.  Dench  did. 
She'd  learned  the  European  frankness."  Fairish  was  as 
frank  as  she  —  "She  asked  my  advice  as  from  one  man  of 
the  world  to  another.  I  wish  I  could  have  referred  her  to 
you  —  you'd  be  the  very  one  to  tell  her." 

"I'm  afraid  I  don't  quite  understand  what  it  was  she 
wished  to  know." 

"Why,  just  what  I've  said  —  the  best  way  of  launching 
her  daughter." 

"You  mean  socially?" 

"Socially  and  with  an  eye  —  an  eye  to  eventually 
marrying  her." 

"What  a  dreadful  woman  !" 

Ralph  rose  in  her  defence.  "Not  dreadful  —  simply 
frank.  Women  are  mostly  such  hypocrites  about  things 
of  that  sort.  You,  of  course,  never  having  had  a  daughter, 
can't  tell  what  you'd  do." 


214  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"I  certainly  shouldn't  discuss  her  future  with  strange 
young  men." 

They  were  off  on  an  argument  seemingly  as  abstract  as  it 
was  far-fetched.  All  that  there  had  been  to  say  was  still 
unsaid.  Mrs.  Parrish's  eagerness  was  fed  by  a  fluent  dis 
sertation  on  the  hypocrisy  of  women  in  matters  of  the 
heart,  the  freedom  of  choice  allowed  by  American  mothers 
to  their  daughters,  the  doubtful  wisdom  of  such  a  course. 
Ralph's  fluency  ran  away  with  him.  Mrs.  Parrish's  sup- 
-port  of  her  countrywomen  and  of  liberty  sounded  by  com 
parison  weak  and  halting  —  "I  can't  agree.  A  girl,  simply 
because  she  is  unmarried,  is  not  a  fool  or  a  slave  to  be  sold  in 
the  market-place.  She's  a  free  agent  with  a  right  to  choose 
for  herself.  Our  system  is  not  perfect,  our  divorce  courts 
are  crowded,  but  nevertheless  — " 

"  Nevertheless,  you  wouldn't  have  it  otherwise  ?  Ah — if 
it  wasn't  for  the  side  you're  on,  I  should  say  you  were  con 
servative.  Let  me  put  it  to  you  like  this.  If  you  were 
getting  a  horse  or  an  automobile,  —  the  only  one  you  ever 
expected  to  be  able  to  afford,  —  you  wouldn't  pick  it  out  all 
yourself,  just  because  you  liked  its  looks.  You'd  hunt  up  — 
if  that  were  possible  —  the  services  of  an  expert  who  had 
your  best  interests  at  heart.  Now,  a  girl,  in  getting  a  hus 
band,  has  the  services  of  her  mother  without  any  hunting 
at  all." 

"  You  consider  the  mother  an  expert  in  husbands  ?" 

"It  goes  without  saying  she's  more  of  an  expert  than  the 
girl.  A  woman  like  Mrs.  Dench  who  knows  the  ropes 
—  why,  she's  qualified  absolutely  to  decide.  Jane  is  lucky." 

"Who's  Jane?" 

"Mrs.  Bench's  daughter.    She's  lucky,"  Ralph  believed 


MOTHER  AND   SON  215 

it,  "and  not  in  the  least  a  slave  to  be  sold  in  the  market 
place.  If  she  were — "  He  intimated  that  the  market 
place  would  never  hold  the  buyers. 

"And  all  this  you  got  to  on  the  steamer?  You  made  the 
most  of  your  time." 

"You  know  the  things  one  gets  to  on  a  steamer/'  Ralph 
brought  out. 

"March  is  a  little  cold  for  moonlit  decks,"  said  his 
mother.  "And  besides,  which  would  be  your  companion  on 
such  occasions  —  the  mother,  with  her  knowledge  of  hus 
bands  and  ropes,  or  the  lovely  girl?" 

"Why  not  both?" 

"Oh,  I'm  not  to  be  caught  with  chaff  of  that  sort!" 
The  mild  eye  gleamed.  All  the  Parrish  women  were  mild  — 
the  women  mild,  the  men  inclined  to  the  reverse. 

"You're  not  to  be  caught.  You're  unbelievably  clever. 
Now  if  you  had  a  daughter  — " 

"It  rests  with  you,  Ralph;  but  what  use  would  it  be? 
I  would  never  have  the  chance  to  show  my  skill,  for  she'd  be 
already  provided  for." 

Ralph  colored.  His  mother  regarded  him  in  amazement. 
With  a  quick,  fluttering  movement  she  put  out  her  hand 
across  the  table  and  laid  it  on  his.  "It's  not  the  lovely 
girl?" 

"You've  always  given  me  credit  for  the  usual  amount  of 
common  sense."  It  was  uncomplimentary  to  the  lovely 
girl. 

Mrs.  Parrish  covered  her  surprise  with  a  little  tinkle  of 
laughter.  " I've  never  had  cause  —  "  She  stopped.  "You're 
of  good  New  England  stock  —  which,  by  the  way,  reminds 
me  that  with  a  horse  the  question  of  pedigree  — " 


216  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"But,  mother  dear,  you're  almost  as  frank  as  Mrs. 
Bench!" 

in 

Meeting  for  the  first  time  in  three  months,  it  seemed  as 
though  Ralph  and  his  mother  had  slipped  away  from  their 
usual  familiar  footing.  They  couldn't  for  the  moment  regain 
it.  Generally  in  such  cases  the  returned  wanderer  has  a  store 
of  traveller's  tales  with  which  to  fill  the  breach ;  but  Ralph's 
store  was  too  tightly  packed  to  be  easily  dislodged,  and  it  was 
at  the  door  of  the  eternal  verities  that  the  one  nearest  the 
top  should  concern  the  Benches.  He  would  have  called  it  an 
unaccountable  impulse,  his  choice  of  them  as  a  topic  of  con 
versation,  almost  as  unaccountable  as  the  impulse  which 
had  sent  him  to  Europe  in  the  interests  of  fur  dealing 
three  months  before.  If  he  had  been  asked  why  he  had 
gone,  even  if  he  had  had  the  will  to  answer,  he  couldn't 
have  done  so.  The  chance  came,  and  its  coming  had  sug 
gested  his  acceptance  of  it.  But  his  reasons  extended  be 
hind  that ;  they  were  many  and  vague  —  and  his  reasons 
were  usually  few  and  clear.  His  going  had  something  to  do 
with  Emily  Stedman  —  something  to  do  with  the  Barlows 
occupying  her  so  much ;  something  to  do  with  an  impulse 
to  break  a  slender  but  tightening  chain,  and  something  to  do 
with  a  letter  which  he  had  received  from  Mme.  Rostov. 

It  was  a  merely  ordinary  bit  of  kindness  from  one  who 
was  always  kind;  but  it  had  brought  to  him  vividly  the 
recollection  of  a  happier,  fuller  period,  and  the  charm  the 
surface  of  which  didn't  evade  one.  Mme.  Rostov's  charm 
cried  out  sharply;  its  evasions  were  all  intentions  and  its 
surfaces  mile-posts  to  those  beneath.  Her  letter  had  been 


MOTHER  AND   SON  217 

full  of  it  —  and  full,  also,  of  the  charm  of  Paris,  its  haze  and 
its  sunlight  and  its  unmistakable  foreignness.  As  Ralph  read 
it,  he  could  have  imagined  himself  standing  in  the  'Place  de 
la  Concorde'  looking  up  the  'Champs-Elysees' —  either 
there  or  in  the  salon  of  the  small  hotel  that  the  Rostovs 
always  patronized  on  their  yearly  visits  to  the  city  of  pleas 
ure.  At  any  rate,  he  hadn't  had  to  imagine  himself  at 
either  of  these  places  two  weeks  later.  He  arrived  osten 
sibly  in  answer  to  Mme.  Rostov's  letter,  and  his  masculine 
humanity  helped  him  to  eat  the  dish  the  gods  laid  before  him. 
He  had  turned  from  it  to  rediscover  his  old  acquaintances, 
the  Benches.  And  now  he  was  in  Boston  dining  with  his 
mother.  He  had  never  before  so  realized  the  jerking  con 
sequent  to  a  rapid  covering  of  distances. 

He  wasn't  as  much  of  a  cosmopolitan  as  he  had  thought 
himself.  The  true  cosmopolitan  makes  no  distinction 
between  one  surrounding  and  another  —  is  equally  at 
home  in  all ;  and  Ralph  Parrish  wasn't  in  the  least  at  home  in 
the  dining  room  of  the  big  Boston  hotel.  He  saw  it  with  the 
false  eye  of  the  outsider,  and  it  was  colored  by  the  falseness, 
from  the  garishness  of  the  painted  ceiling  to  the  brilliancy  of 
the  strips  of  carpet  intersecting  the  polished  floor.  The 
waiters  outdid  each  other  in  an  imitation  of  hurry  and  the 
diners  in  an  imitation  of  gayety.  In  Paris  the  gayety  was 
the  real  thing;  it  was  flesh  of  its  flesh  and  bone  of  its  bone; 
but  in  Boston  just  that  sort  of  gayety  didn't  quite  succeed. 
It  was  as  if  a  gently  bred  New  England  lady  —  preferably 
the  daughter  of  a  distinguished  man  —  should  appear 
before  the  footlights  of  the  music-hall  stage  in  spangles 
and  tights. 

He  looked  across  at  his  mother.    She  was  the  real  thing  — • 


218  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

as  real  and  as  complete  in  her  own  way  as  were  the  Benches 
and  Mme.  Rostov  in  theirs.  He  felt  that  he  had  always 
been  too  close  to  his  mother  rightly  to  appreciate  her ;  and 
his  present  lack  of  a  familiar  footing  made  him  see  her 
whole  —  made  him  see  her  in  all  her  beautiful  perfection. 
She  occupied  the  place  of  honor  in  his  gallery  of  women; 
and  how  many  men  were  there,  he  considered,  who  could 
honestly  say  that  of  their  mothers?  Was  it  perhaps  a 
reflection  on  his  choice  of  feminine  friends  ?  Though  as  for 
that,  there  was  Jane  Bench  to  keep  the  standard  up,  and 
there  was  Emily  Stedman.  The  standard  was  one  of 
goodness  —  Jane's  goodness  was  undeniable;  Emily's  good 
ness  —  he  ungallantly  wondered  if  it  were  a  mere  freak  of 
the  Fates.  She  had  certainly  committed  a  sin  not  generally 
attributable  to  good  women.  She  had  lowered  her  cousin's 
respect  for  himself.  For  it  was  not  conducive  to  this  respect 
—  the  realization  that  the  woman  who  had  occupied  him  so 
much  for  so  many  years  should  suddenly  cease  to  do  so. 
The  fault  must  be  hers  —  therefore  the  sin.  By  his  impulse 
to  break  the  slender  but  tightening  chain,  he  had  not  meant 
quite  that. 

He  told  his  mother  with  engaging  frankness  that  he  had 
Emily  on  his  conscience  just  a  bit  heavily.  It  had  been  a 
question  of  his  going  at  the  moment,  or  not  at  all,  and  he 
hadn't  even  had  the  time  to  bid  her  good-by.  He  had 
telephoned,  but  she  had  been  out.  He  had  written,  but  her 
answer  had  gone  astray.  And  here  he  was  back  again  and, 
save  for  the  purchase  of  a  trifling  gift,  he  hadn't  done  a 
thing  about  her.  His  mother  knew  the  way  time  slipped 

ahead  ? 

i 

His  mother  knew. 


MOTHER  AND   SON  219 

"How  is  she?"  asked  Ralph. 

"She's  very  much  better." 

"You  mean  she's  stronger?  Isn't  that  splendid!  Dr. 
Jeffries  had  some  new  idea  up  his  sleeve  before  I  left,  and  if 
he  really  carried  it  out,  —  that  was  the  great  thing  about 
her  doing  so  well  with  her  writing,  —  it  gave  Dr.  Jeffries  a 
bigger  chance — " 

"But  Ralph  —  you  say  before  you  left  —  before  you 
left  she  wasn't  ill!" 

"She  certainly  wasn't  well !" 

The  table  between  them  became  a  wall  of  incomprehen 
sion  across  which  they  stared  blankly. 

"You  mean  that  before  you  left  she  had  already  begun  to 
break  down  ?  I  thought  it  a  sudden  collapse." 

Ralph  confessed  to  the  fact  of  being  completely  at  sea. 

"Didn't  you  know  that  Emily  nearly  died?" 

Emily's  cousin  couldn't  fail  to  understand  that.  "For 
the  love  of  the  Lord ! " 

"Not  entirely,  Ralph." 

"Tell  me— " 

"It  was,  as  I  say,  a  break-down  —  physical,  nervous, 
everything.  Her  servant  found  her  lying  in  a  heap  on  the 
floor.  She  was  ill  for  weeks ;  but  now  all  danger's  past  — 
she's  up  and  about,  and  the  same  little  Emily." 

Ralph  Parrish  had  colored  with  the  force  of  his  emotion. 
"  I  never  was  told  —  I  never  heard  !  — " 

"I  thought  of  course  you  knew." 

"How  should  I  know?    You  might  have  written." 

"I  thought  you  knew  —  it  seemed  somehow  more  a  mat 
ter  between  you  and  her.  We're  not  much  in  the  habit 
of  discussing  Emily. " 


220  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"You  never  liked  her." 

"I  liked  her  very  much.  On  Uncle  Richard's  death  I 
went  straight  and  asked  her  to  live  with  me.  I've  done  it 
again;  but  she  refuses  flatly." 

"You  must  bring  her  round  —  it's  the  only  solution  — 
I'll  go  to  see  her  to-morrow.  She  must  think  me  a  cad, 
never  to  have  given  any  sign  for  all  these  months,  and  she  — 
poor  little  woman  —  I  can  see  her  lying  there  day  after  day 
and  finally  winning  out  —  getting  well  by  her  own  sheer 
courage.  I  can  see  her  — "  He  repeated  it,  but  the  vision 
was  distant  and  dim. 

"She's  not  living  in  New  York  now,"  said  Mrs.  Parrish. 

"No?    Then  where— " 

"She's  moved,  bag  and  baggage,  to  Ocean  City." 

Parrish  stared.     "Come  —  that's  too  impossible  !" 

"Why,  it's  not  impossible  at  all.  It's  the  very  place  for 
her  to  be  —  the  very  place." 

"She  must  leave." 

"  You'll  have  to  talk  with  Dr.  Jeffries  about  that.  And, 
besides,  why  should  you  care  where  she  is  ?  If  it's  as  you 
say,  that  you've  made  no  sign  for  all  these  months,  —  she 
might  have  died  for  all  you  would  have  known,  —  why 
should  you  take  it  upon  yourself,  as  soon  as  you  set  foot 
upon  land,  to  remove  her  from  the  place  she's  selected  quite 
without  your  advice?" 

"Won't  you  accept  my  word  for  it,  mother,  that  Ocean 
City's  not  a  good  selection  ?  You  must  remember  that  she's 
our  cousin,  yours  and  mine,  and  it's  our  duty  to  keep  an 
eye-" 

"You  mean  that  Ocean  City's  not  respectable?" 

"I  should  hardly  — "  Parrish  hesitated  —  "Ocean  City's 
perfectly  respectable  —  of  course." 


MOTHER  AND  SON  221 

"Then  what  ?  —  Emily's  not  a  child,  you  know.  You're 
not  experimenting  with  your  European  ideas  about  the 
bringing  up  of  daughters?  And  even  if  you  were,  you'd 
have  no  right ;  Emily's  not  our  daughter  —  either  yours  or 
mine.  I've  asked  her  to  Hornmouth ;  what  more  can  I  do  ?  " 

"  You  see,  mother,  it's  like  this  — "  Parrish  met  the  still 
questioning  gaze  of  the  lady  whom  he  addressed  and  drew 
back.  "I  can't  explain  —  you  wouldn't  understand. 
It's  simply  that  I  should  like  to  make  up  to  Emily  for  my 
former  delinquencies,  and  if  she's  at  Ocean  City,  I  shan't 
be  able  to  —  there  won't  be  room." 

"It  will  take  room?" 

"Ocean  City's  not  New  York  " 

As  she  looked  at  her  son  there  passed  through  the 
mother's  mind  the  same  idea  that  had  come  to  George,  the 
servant  at  the  Town  Club.  Not  that  it  was  an  idea  with 
which  she  was  in  the  habit  of  explaining  Ralph's  ambigui 
ties  ;  but  she  kept  a  mind  open  to  the  free  passage  of  ideas  — 
however  new.  She  glanced  with  suspicion  at  the  half- 
emptied  bottle  of  light  wine  which  had  accompanied  dinner, 
and  decided  her  suspicion  to  be  groundless.  It  must  have 
been  before  that  —  and  it  was  outside  her  jurisdiction. 

"Ocean  City's  not  New  York,"  Ralph  wisely  repeated. 

"Naturally  not.  But  if  you're  worried  about  her  isola 
tion,  I  take  it  from  something  she  said  in  her  last  letter 
that  she's  not  entirely  alone.  Those  very  rich  friends  of 
hers  —  what  is  their  name?  —  are  also  stopping  at  the 
'Tidewater.'  " 

"Is  she  at  the  'Tidewater'?" 

"Yes.  It's  considered  one  of  the  best  hotels  there  — 
also  one  of  the  quietest.  I  remember  the  name  of  her 


222  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

friends  now  —  Barlow;  they're  the  bun  people.  She 
mentioned  only  the  son ;  she  found  him  charming  —  Why, 
Ralph !  What's  the  matter  ? ' ' 

He  had  the  effect  of  having  completely  forgotten  his 
mother's  presence.  He  spoke  the  name  of  the  Barlows' 
son,  and  then  more  softly,  "What  an  unholy  mess!" 


CHAPTER  XI 

IN  THE  MIDST  OF  BATTLE 


THERE  came  a  day  filled  with  the  warmth  of  early 
April.  Ocean  City  fairly  glittered  with  light  and  air  and 
people.  The  booths  along  the  walk  were  opened,  with 
fresh  signs  and  wonderful  wares.  The  blue  of  the  sea 
reflected  the  blue  of  the  sky.  The  once  mythical  crowds 
were  mythical  no  longer ;  they  were  arriving  in  ever  increas 
ing  numbers ;  they  were  like  the  swelling  wake  of  a  jubilant 
procession. 

It  reminded  the  Benches  of  the  Italian  Riviera  —  the 
daughter  painfully,  the  mother  pleasantly.  Emily 
wondered  why,  if  the  Riviera  were  Mrs.  Bench's  ideal  — 
the  standard  by  which  she  measured  Ocean  City  —  why  she 
had  wandered  so  far  afield.  Was  it,  as  she  said,  in  order 
that  Jane  should  not  become  absolutely  expatriated  that 
she  had  come  to  the  'Tidewater  Hotel'?  Emily  couldn't 
tell  at  all.  And  Mrs.  Bench  struck  her  as  a  woman  upon 
whose  reasons  it  would  be  futile  to  ponder.  As  she  sat 
there,  far  back  in  her  wheeled  chair,  half  buried  under  the 
contents  of  a  florist's  window  which  she  had  passingly 
admired — her  large,  intelligent  face  rising  up  out  of  the  fresh 
spring  blooms, — she  reminded  Emily  of  an  early  pagan  idol 
whose  worshippers  had, been  spurred  by  prospective  war  or 
famine  or  pestilence  to  an  unwonted  devotion.  It  was 

223 


224  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

David  Barlow  who  had  constituted  himself  the  high  priest 
of  the  sacrifice.  She  had  seen  the  flowers  and  liked  them, 
and  they  were  hers.  He  had  come  out  of  the  shop,  his  arms 
laden,  and  been  rewarded  with  a  smile  and  a  command  not 
to  forget  Miss  Stedman  and  Jane.  It  put  these  ladies  in  a 
slightly  awkward  position,  this  having  to  accept  of  an  un- 
spontaneous  gift,  but  they  eased  the  situation  by,  for  the 
moment,  placing  their  share  with  Mrs.  Bench's.  It  made 
a  magnificent  mass  —  all  the  flowers  together  —  and  it  was 
their  scent  mixed  with  the  scent  of  the  sea  that  called  the 
Riviera  so  vividly  to  Mrs.  Dench's  mind. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "the  whole  thing  is  wonderfully  like  — 
don't  you  remember,  Jane,  it  was  just  a  year  ago;  no, 
a  little  more  than  a  year,  that  we  were  there?  The  same 
jolly  little]  party.  Only  you  weren't  with  us  then,  Miss 
Stedman." 

"I  wish  I  had  been." 

"Why  do  you  wish  that?"  asked  Jane.  "You  wouldn't 
have  liked  it.  Would  she,  David?" 

"The  Riviera  ?  I  don't  know,  I'm  sure.  I  thought  Miss 
Stedman  liked  everything.  You  told  me  once,"  David 
had  turned  and  was  now  addressing  her — "you  told  me 
that  everything  amused  you.  You  said,  I  think,  that  you 
caressed  your  pleasures  —  patted  them  and  fondled  them 
and  made  the  most  of  them." 

It  was  the  sort  of  thing  which,  once  said,  it  was  useless  to 
disown. 

Mrs.  Dench  laughed.  "I  can't  imagine  patting  and 
fondling  and  caressing  the  Riviera.  It's  too  tremendous. 
And  besides,  some  of  the  people — "  she  pondered — "it's 
the  people  in  Ocean  City  that  give  the  place  away,  the  people 


IN   THE   MIDST  OF   BATTLE  225 

and  the  clothes.  If  they  all  had  clothes  like  yours,  Miss 
Stedman  —  your  clothes  have  an  air,  and  your  hats!" 
She  professed  her  admiration  for  Miss  Stedman's  hats. 
"Now  that  one  you  have  on  —  You  understand  that  the 
proper  function  of  a  hat  is  to  amuse.  Dresses,  gloves, 
shoes  —  they  can't  be  so  very  amusing ;  they  have  certain 
other  functions  which  come  first.  But  a  hat !  —  Why,  that 
one  you  have  on  is  the  most  delicately  witty  thing  I've  seen 
in  this  country.  That  combination  of  colors  —  those  con 
trasting  feathers  —  Of  course,  on  me  a  hat  like  that  would 
be  not  so  much  amusing  as  comic,  and  on  Jane  a  hat  like 
that  would  be  in  bad  taste.  At  her  age  one  goes  in  for  the 
inconspicuous;  and  besides,  it's  not  her  type.  But  on 
you — " 

"  It  w  mine?" 

"Yours?" 

"  My  type  to  be  amusing  —  to  wear  witty  hats  ?" 

"Oh,  absolutely!" 

"Is  that  the  reason,"  asked  Emily,  "is  it  because  I'm 
amusing  that  you've  been  so  extraordinarily  nice  to  me?" 

"  We  —  nice  to  you  —  oh,  my  dear ! "  Mrs.  Dench  gazed 
for  a  while  at  Jane  and  David,  who  had  gone  on  a  little  in 
advance.  "You  know,  even  if  I  hadn't  liked  you  so  im 
mensely,  Jane,  there,  would  have  made  your  life  a  burden. 
She's  taken  the  most  tremendous  shine  to  you  —  says  you 
and  she  have  so  much  in  common  —  speaks  of  a  sort  of 
bond.  Trust  Jane  for  finding  a  bond  between  herself  and 
the  people  she  likes  !" 

It  seemed  somehow  to  be  not  in  Jane's  favor,  her  clever 
ness  in  this  direction,  and  Emily  put  in  a  word  in  her  de 
fence:  "Isn't  the  mere  fact  that  she  likes  them  —  and  in 

Q 


226  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

consequence  they  can  do  nothing  but  gratefully  adore  her  — 
isn't  that  in  itself  a  bond?" 

"  I  don't  know  —  I  sometimes  wonder.  But  please  don't 
for  a  moment  think  that  I'm  not  delighted  at  any  bond 
between  Jane  and  you." 

Emily  laughed.  "Yet  you  didn't  allow  her  to  read 
'The  Cuckoo.'" 

Mrs.  Bench  cut  her  short.  " The  author  of  ' The  Cuckoo ' 
is  hardly  the  friend  I  should  have  picked  out  for  her ;  but 
unfortunately  my  field  for  picking  is  very  limited.  It's 
extremely  bad  for  a  young  girl  to  be  eternally  cooped  up 
with  an  old  woman  like  me,  and  there  you  have  it !" 

"  But  we're  forgetting  Mr.  Barlow.  Isn't  he  all  the  friend 
any  girl  needs?" 

Mrs.  Bench's  gaze  had  never  left  him.  "  He's  a  handsome 
little  chap,  isn't  he  ?  And  when  it  comes  to  making  himself 
useful  —  running  errands  and  buying  trinkets — " 

"  Is  he  a  friend  you'd  have  picked  out  for  her  if  your  field 
for  picking  had  been  less  limited?" 

The  inquiry  fell  on  sharpened  ears.  "He's  a  man  — 
you're  not  —  the  situation's  not  the  same.  She  likes  him, 
of  course,  very  much  indeed.  That's  just  it  —  she  likes 
him  too  much.  And  it's  from  finding  a  bond  that  I'm 
trying  to  keep  her.  It's  why  I'm  so  glad  about  you  and  her; 
you'll  occupy  her.  I  don't  want  her  to  marry  so  young." 

Emily  gasped.     "  You  think  she'll  marry  Bavid  Barlow  ?  " 

"  For  the  future  it's  my  dearest  hope ;  but  I'm  trying 
to  keep  it  from  reaching  that  point  yet."  The  diplomat's 
widow  gayly  launched  into  American  slang.  "Not  yet, 
you  know,  but  soon  —  but  soon !" 

In  looking  back  upon  this  moment  it  has  always  been  a 


IN   THE   MIDST   OF   BATTLE  227 

source  of  surprise  to  Emily  that  she  didn't  make  some  public 
demonstration  —  sit  down  in  the  middle  of  the  walk,  kick 
her  heels  in  the  air,  shout,  cry,  make  it  plain  that  she  didn't 
for  the  moment  know  where  she  was.  From  the  point  of 
view  of  the  spectator  she  was  surely  getting  well  paid  for 
her  courage  in  having  stayed  at  the  performance.  The 
curtain  was  up,  the  drama  on.  It  was  true  that  Mrs.  Bench 
was  a  woman  the  like  of  whom  she  happened  never  to  have 
seen.  David  Barlow  was  in  love  with  her,  and  Jane  was  in 
love  with  David  Barlow.  To  complete  the  circle  there 
should  be  some  one  in  love  with  Jane,  some  one  who  should 
in  turn  be  loved  by  Jane's  mother.  But  no,  Jane's  mother 
would  not  be  vulnerable  to  the  tender  passion.  If  she  were 
—  why,  if  she  were,  Emily  hoped  that  she  would  be  there 
to  see.  The  abstract  enthusiasm  of  the  spectator  was  taking 
the  place  of  perching  visions.  The  egotist  was  learning  to 
efface  herself.  The  drama  swung  better  without  her. 

There  were  still  times  when  her  own  part  in  it  rushed  over 
her.  The  pitch  at  which  she  lived  screeched  ever  upward ; 
the  perching  visions  doubled  and  trebled  and  quadrupled. 
They  were  all  of  David  Barlow  —  David  bareheaded  in  the 
bow  of  a  boat  —  David  hovering  over  Mrs.  Dench's  tea- 
table  —  David  reading  his  morning's  paper.  She  had  once 
been  occupied  in  watching  his  soul.  She  had  found  it  easy 
to  comprehend.  A  good  deal  of  it  had  been  visible  to  her 
from  where  she  had  sat  on  Mrs.  Dench's  gilt-trimmed  French 
sofa.  It  had  been  to  her  a  tangible,  definite  thing  —  some 
thing  beyond  the  perching  visions,  beyond  the  beguiling 
personality.  And  soul  was  merely  another,  larger  word  for 
mind.  It  was  the  mind  that  held  her  and  puzzled  her  — 
a  man  wasn't  carved  in  bronze  for  nothing. 


228  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

Now  Jane  —  Emily  triumphed  over  Jane  —  Jane  didn't 
care  the  snap  of  a  finger  for  David's  mind.  She  loved  him 
for  his '  beaux  yeux'  —  the  set  of  his  head  upon  his  shoulders, 
the  deft  movement  of  his  hands,  the  neat,  strong  poise  of  his 
neat,  strong  body,  the  sound  of  his  voice  and  the  sound  of  his 
laugh.  Emily  would  have  paid  Jane,  and  paid  her  high,  for 
the  memory  of  that  day  in  the  Mediterranean  with  the  two 
coaling  yachts,  the  bright,  hard  sunlight  and  David.  She 
wondered  if  he  saw  her  —  if  he  looked  up  at  her  from  the 
little  brass-trimmed  tender,  or  if  from  the  first  he  had  eyes 
only  for  her  mother.  Jane's  heart  must  have  gone  to  him 
straight.  It  had  not  been  with  her  a  question  of  growth 
and  months  and  flowers  springing  from  new-made  graves. 
Emily's  passion  looked  beside  hers  a  very  slender  thing 
indeed.  Her  youth  recognized  his  youth,  and  with  Emily 
1 — Emily's  youth  didn't  exist.  And  surely  youth  was  a 
necessary  concomitant  of  passion,  and  love  without  it  as  un 
real  —  for  all  the  use  it  was  —  as  the  feast  seen  through  the 
glass  of  a  cake  shop's  window.  But  mightn't  mind  or  soul, 
or  whatever  you  chose  to  call  it,  take  the  place  of  youth  ? 
Though  what  was  mind,  after  all,  in  comparison  with  perch 
ing  visions  ? 

Emily's  thought  was  tangled.  She  took  refuge  in  the 
simple  evidence  of  her  senses.  There,  ahead  of  her,  walking 
side  by  side,  were  Jane  and  David,  a  notably  fine  pair  of 
young  people,  possessing  between  them  riches  and  beauty. 
What  more  natural  than  the  thing  Emily's  companion  so 
grandly  intimated?  Mrs.  Dench  would  not  be  the  first 
mother  who  had  sacrificed  herself  to  the  happiness  of  her 
daughter. 

Emily  finally  gave  voice  to  a  sentiment  previously 
brought  out  by  Ralph  Parrish.  "  Jane  is  lucky." 


IN   THE  MIDST  OF  BATTLE  229 

"  You  mean  you  so  like  David  ?  " 

"  Immensely  —  don't  you  ?" 

"  Why,  of  course.  But  then  the  extent  of  my  liking  for 
David  amounts  almost  to  prejudice." 

"Every  one  likes  David." 

"  Yes,  every  one,"  said  Mrs.  Dench.  And  that  seemed 
the  end  of  that  road. 

But  Emily  still  had  a  word.  "He's  tremendously  un 
selfish." 

"  You've  seen  it  too  ?  —  Of  course,  Jane  and  I  — "  Mrs. 
Dench  paused.  "  Why,  the  things  we  could  tell  you  about 
David's  unselfishness !  It  never  seems  to  occur  to  him 
that  he  himself  has  needs.  He  has  ideas  about  his  clothes ; 
but  beyond  that  he  might  as  well  be  a  pauper.  Even  in  the 
matter  of  things  to  eat  — " 

"With  his  family,"  Emily  broke  in,  "it's  just  the  other 
extreme.  Life  with  them  is  one  great,  gorgeous  meal. 
John  Barlow  has  given  the  public  the  sort  of  food  they  like 
—  they  in  turn  give  him  the  sort  he  likes.  But  that's  not 
David." 

"  Never !  And  yet  I  imagine  that  in  this  country  he's 
not  appreciated.  Tell  me,  —  he  always  refuses  to  talk  with 
me  about  his  work,  —  what  does  he  intend  to  do  ?  Do  you 
know  ?  I've  gathered  something  very  vague  about  political 
ambitions." 

"So  have  I  —  something  very  vague." 

"  I'm  to  take  it  that  he's  that  very  rare  bird,  a  member  of 
your  American  leisure  class?" 

"So  I  should  think." 

Mrs.  Dench  found  it  funny.  "I've  been  told  it's  a 
class  which  is  largely  recruited  from  laundress's  husbands 


230  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

and  the  gentlemen  who  earn  their  living  by  voting  for  Presi 
dent." 

"There  we  have  the  political  ambitions  — " 

But  Mrs.  Dench  was  lost  in  thought.  "  It's  somehow  not 
like  him  to  rest  on  his  father's  laurels." 

"  No,  he's  not  exactly  the  type  of  rich  man's  son." 

"It's  a  type  I  know  very  little  about,"  said  Mrs.  Dench. 

Emily  also  protested  her  ignorance. 

She  had  Mrs.  Bench's  sympathy;  and  that  lady  suggested 
that  as  the  geologist  reconstructs  the  whole  of  an  extinct 
animal  from  a  single  bone,  so  might  they  gain  a  knowledge 
of  all  rich  men's  sons  from  their  knowledge  of  David. 

"But  if  he's  not  the  type!  " 

"  What  matter  ?  Besides,  there's  rather  a  dearth  at  Ocean 
City  of  any  sons  at  all.  We  should  be  duly  grateful  for 
even  an  uncharacteristic  specimen." 

"If  we  all  had  an  equal  number  of  turns,"  said  Emily  — 
Mrs.  Dench  was  not  the  only  woman  in  Ocean  City  who 
could  be  remarkable  —  "if  we  all  had  an  equal  number  of 
turns,  our  gratitude  would  be  boundless.  But  since  you  and 
your  daughter  arrived  —  well  —  I  suppose  I  had  my  turn 
before  that  happened." 

She  stood,  aghast  at  her  own  impertinence,  but  Mrs. 
Dench  answered  her  far  above  her  deserts.  "  You  had  your 
turn  —  your  opportunity  —  and  you  failed  to  grasp  it." 

Mrs.  Dench  was  laughing,  but  Emily  put  a  question  in  all 
seriousness.  "What  would  have  been  your  conception  of 
my 'grasping'  it?" 

The  amber  eyes,  with  their  tendency  towards  prominence, 
stared  fixedly.  "I  would  have  had  no  conception.  The 
thing's  preposterous.  You  haven't  even  had  your  turn. 


IN   THE   MIDST   OF   BATTLE  231 

But  now  won't  you  for  a  moment  emulate  David's  example, 
and  sacrifice  yourself  in  the  cause  of  others?  Won't  you 
make  up  some  excuse  to  go  on  in  front  and  join  those  two? 
1  think  Jane's  turn  has  extended  long  enough." 

"I  thought  it  was  Jane,"  Emily  said,  "who  objected  to 
seeing  so  much  of  David  —  don't  you  remember  that  after 
noon  when  we  took  tea  with  you  ?  —  so  if  you  object  also, 
why,  I  can't  understand  why  you  see  him." 

"Oh,  Jane  doesn't  object  to  seeing  him  herself!  She 
objects  to  my  seeing  him.  She  objects  to  my  seeing  him, 
and  I  object  to  her  seeing  him.  It's  plain  that  we  either 
don't  trust  each  other  or  him." 

"Him?  " 

"Yes,  and  if  we  don't  trust  him, we  certainly  shouldn't 
wish  each  other  to  be  contaminated.  Which,  as  David 
would  say,  of  course  I  don't  mean."  And  then  Mrs.  Dench 
rather  abruptly  changed  the  subject.  Her  new  one  was 
Ralph  Parrish.  She  talked  of  Ralph  Parrish  all  the  way 
back  to  the  hotel ;  and  Emily  —  at  first  puzzled  —  pres 
ently  evolved  the  explanation  that  she  did  so  because 
she  desired  to  mitigate  any  impression  she  might  have  con 
veyed  of  David's  undue  importance.  If  she  had  been  in 
discreet,  she  now  gave  the  effect  of  wishing  her  indiscretion 
to  be  disregarded.  It  was  astonishing  how  much  trouble  she 
took  about  it:  — 

"  You  tell  me  it's  Mr.  Parrish's  mother  who  is  really  your 
cousin?  It  must  be  delightful  to  have  relations.  Mine 
are  so  very  scattered  —  why,  I  haven't  sat  down  to  a  family 
Christmas  dinner  for  twenty  years !  The  Parrishes  are 
Bostonians,  are  they  not  ?  Mr.  Parrish  told  me  that  for  him 
self  he  infinitely  preferred  New  York;  but  men  are  apt  to. 


232  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

I  know  very  little  about  either  city.    Washington  is  more 
in  my  line.    Speaking  of  Washington,  I  believe  your  cousin 
is  not,  like  David,  interested  in  politics." 
"No,  neither  church  nor  state  nor  army  — " 
Mrs.  Bench  looked  up.    "  I  imagine  him  hardly  suited  to 
the  church,  and  of  course  the  army  is  unoriginal." 

"  But  so  is  the  thing  he's  in  unoriginal  —  the  great  field 
of  commerce,  the  tanning  of  pelts." 
"  Is  he  clever  at  it  —  this  tanning  of  pelts  ?" 
"He  doesn't  actually  do  it  himself,  you  know." 
"Oh,  I  know."    Mrs.  Bench  waited  .  .  . 
"Yes,"  Emily  finally  went  on,  "I  believe  he's  very  clever 
at  it.    He  has  the  knack  of  getting  on  with  people  —  mak 
ing  himself  right  with  all  sorts  of  men." 

Mrs.  Bench  confessed  that  if  she  hadn't  their  word  for  it, 
—  both  his  word  and  Emily's,  —  she  never  would  have 
guessed  his  occupation.  "  He  suggests  leisure,  great  golden 
leisure  —  his  energies  seem  all  dormant  and  his  strength 
unexerted.  He's  like  a  magnificent  animal  basking  in  the 
sun." 

"Oh,  that's  his  pose.    He's  learned  that  a  pose  — " 
Mrs.  Bench  interrupted.    "  He's  learned  a  great  deal. " 
"But  he  doesn't  expect  his  poses  to  be  believed !" 
"Then  when  they  are,  he  gets  more  than  he  bargained 
for.    Why  don't  you  have  him  down  here?" 

Emily  answered  obliquely.  "Wouldn't  he  be  dreadfully 
on  our  hands  ?  He'd  find  it  dull,  and  through  sheer  pride 
we'd  be  forced  to  entertain  him.  Now  if  Jane  weren't 
already  so  occupied  — " 

"Oh  —  Jane!"  From  her  manner  of  pronouncing  it, 
Emily  caught  the  impression  that  Mrs.  Bench  wasn't 


IN  THE  MIDST   OF  BATTLE  233 

entirely  satisfied  with  her  daughter's  name.  "Jane — " 
she  repeated  it.  "Jane's  not  so  occupied  as  you  think." 

"Perhaps  it  would  be  just  the  very  diversion  needed  to 
bring  it  to  a  point."  - 

"It?" 

"Your  plan  for  her  and  Mr.  Barlow." 

"  Oh,  to  be  sure.  But  really,  all  joking  aside,  why  don't 
you  have  him  down?" 

"  Why  don't  you?" 

"You  know,  I  think  I  will." 

It  struck  Emily  as  a  coincidence,  the  handwriting  of 
Ralph  Parrish's  mother  on  the  envelope  of  a  letter  which 
she  found  in  her  mail-box  half  an  hour  later.  The  coinci 
dence  was  too  striking  —  the  letter  was  opened  with  an  un 
canny  sense  of  possible  disaster,  and  it  was  in  a  voice  that 
barely  concealed  her  relief  that  she,  turning,  spoke  to  Jane. 

Jane  was  also  getting  her  mail,  and  she  raised  her  eyes 
from  an  examination  of  it.  "Pardon  me,  what  did  you 
say?" 

"I  said  that  my  cousin,  Mrs.  Parrish,  is  coming  here. 
She's  to  stay  one  week,  and  she  arrives  to-morrow." 

"Oh,.I'msoglad!" 

Emily  stared.    "  Now,  why  ?  " 

"Why?  Because  mother  does  so  long  for  the  society  of 
an  older  woman.  It's  frightfully  bad  for  her,  being  eternally 
cooped  up  with  a  mere  chit  of  a  girl  like  me." 

History  repeated  itself  almost  word  for  word:  "We're 
forgetting  Mr.  Barlow." 

"Oh,  she  has  David,  if  that's  what  you  mean." 

"Doesn't  she  like  David?" 

"  Almost  too  much.    But  that  doesn't  prevent  her  longing 


234  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

for  some  one  of  her  own  age  and  sex  —  some  one  with  whom 
she  can  —  metaphorically  speaking  —  sit  on  the  front  porch 
and  embroider  doilies." 

Emily  again  stared;  but  Jane  was  looking  at  her  very 
straight  and  very  gravely.  "She  positively  longs — " 
And  didn't  this  longing  exactly  coincide  with  the  idea  of 
Mrs.  Bench's  character  to  be  gained  from  the  hopes  and 
fears  that  she  had  so  recklessly  confided  that  very  morning  ? 
If  it  hadn't  been  for  this  —  for  the  wonderful  way  in  which 
Mrs.  Bench  had  explained  herself  —  Emily  would  have 
thought  her  daughter's  gaze  almost  too  straight  and  too 
grave. 

ii 

"Well,  Cousin  Laura!" 

"Emily—" 

The  two  women  had  spied  each  other  out  on  the  crowded 
station  platform,  and  were  now  upon  each  other  with  little 
pats  of  greeting. 

"I'm  so  glad  —  so  glad  — " 

"Are  you  really?" 

"  Yes,  I  am ;  and  I  appreciate  it  —  your  coming  all  this 
way  just  for  me." 

"  You  got  me  a  room  ?  " 

"A  good  one,  with  an  ocean  view,  just  around  the  corner 
from  mine." 

"I  was  afraid  you  might  have  difficulty  so  near  the 
crowded  season.  I  suppose  it's  filling  fast.  Now,  my 
trunk  —  I  have  my  check  — " 

Emily  summoned  one  of  the  'Tidewater'  porters. 
"Here,"  she  explained,  "all  that  is  done  for  you  —  you 


IN   THE  MIDST   OF   BATTLE  235 

forget  we're  a  city  of  invalids.  We're  done  for,  done  for, 
done  for,  from  morning  till  night." 

"Yes,  of  course." 

The  'Tidewater'  motor-bus  hissingly  awaited  their  pleas 
ure.  They  had  it  to  themselves  on  the  way  back,  as 
most  of  the  guests  of  that  hotel  arrived  by  a  special  morning 
train.  Mrs.  Parrish  would  have  done  so,  too ;  but  she  had 
taken  advantage  of  her  passage  through  New  York  to 
accomplish  some  necessary  shopping,  and  as  it  was,  the 
hours  at  her  disposal  fled  all  too  quickly. 

Emily  asked  for  news  of  Hornmouth.  There  was  none  — 
it  hadn't  stirred  an  inch  or  changed  a  hair.  "  Dr.  Rainor  — 
Dr.  Guthrie  — still?" 

"  Yes  —  still.     No  one  has  died  of  any  note." 

"  It's  really  all  one  expects  of  Hornmouth,  isn't  it  ?  But 
tell  me  —  you  left  there  yesterday  —  you've  been  practi 
cally  on  the  wing  ever  since.  And  I  know  what  it  is,  even 
the  little  trip  from  town.  Why,  you  must  be  exhausted !" 

"Not  at  all.  When  I  start  out  to  do  a  thing — "  Mrs. 
Parrish  intimated  the  rest. 

Emily  was  on  the  point  of  asking  her  what  it  was  that  she 
had  started  out  to  do.  The  mild  eye  blazoned  forth  a 
motive  more  important  than  a  mere  cousinly  visit.  But  it 
was  just  because  of  this  that  Emily  saw  the  futility  of  a 
question.  She  saw  it  still  more  clearly  after  the  bus  had 
deposited  them  at  the  big  columned  facade  of  their  hotel  and 
Mrs.  Parrish  had  put  down  her  name  in  the  register.  There 
was  a  motive,  surely,  behind  the  mild,  scrutinizing  stare  with 
which  she  took  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  her  new  surround 
ings  ;  and  a  motive  in  the  question  she  put  to  Emily  imme 
diately  upon  ascending  to  the  privacy  of  their  rooms :  — 


236  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"What  sort  of  a  hotel  is  the  'Tidewater'  ?" 

"Why,  don't  you  see?"  Emily  included  everything  in 
her  gesture. 

"  I  see  it's  big  and  clean  and  expensive.  But  that's  not 
what  I  meant."  She  laid  aside  her  coat  and  gloves.  "  No, 
that's  not  what  I  meant." 

Emily  waited. 

The  wait  was  rewarded.    "  Is  it  respectable  ?" 

"Why,  the  management  probably  makes  the  usual  effort 
to  keep  it  so." 

"And  can  they  always  tell?" 

"Well,  when  they  can't  tell  — " 

"It  doesn't  matter,  does  it?  Is  it  the  biggest  hotel 
here?" 

"No,  there's  one  bigger  —  the  'Balliol  Castle.'  It's 
showier  and  a  little  more  expensive  —  and  a  far  fitter  sub 
ject  for  your  doubts." 

Mrs.  Parrish  was  standing  in  front  of  the  mirror  taking 
off  her  hat.  What  it  lacked  in  trimming  was  made  up  in  hat 
pins,  and  they  bristled  militantly  when  she  finally  set  it  down. 
There  was  something  militant,  also,  in  the  attitude  of  its 
owner  —  something  suggesting  the  soldier  who  pitches  his 
tent  in  the  enemy's  country.  She  suddenly  turned  upon 
Emily.  " If  the ' Balliol  Castle'  is  the  sort  of  place  you  say, 
why  —  in  heaven's  name — don't  people  like  the  Benches 
go  there?" 

"The  Benches  ?  —  I  didn't  know  you  knew  them." 

"I  don't  know  them  —  I've  heard  of  them  from  Ralph." 

"  Ralph  must  have  sadly  maligned  them  if  what  you  inti 
mate  about  them  you  heard  from  him." 

"  Indeed,  he  didn't.    He  didn't  say  a  word  against  them. 


IN   THE  MIDST   OF   BATTLE  237 

It's  just  from  what  he  didn't  say  that  I  drew  my  conclusions. 
Men  are  such  innocent  lambs  where  women  are  concerned." 

Emily  laughed.  "I  should  hardly  call  Ralph  an  inno 
cent  lamb!" 

"Well,  on  that  your  opinion's  worth  more  than  mine. 
Tell  me,  do  you  know  the  Benches  well  ?  Do  you  see  a 
great  deal  of  them?" 

Emily  was  puzzled.  "Why  do  they  interest  you  so 
greatly?  Though  they're  perfectly  respectable,  they're  not 
at  all  your  sort.  What  is  it  about  them  ?  " 

"  If  they're  not  my  sort,  it  would  seem  that  they  were 
hardly  yours,  my  dear.  But  you  haven't  told  me  whether 
you  saw  them  a  great  deal.  Do  you  ?  " 

"  Why,  no  —  only  through  David  Barlow." 

"You  mean  the  son  of  Barley  Buns?" 

"Yes,  the  son  of  Barley  Buns." 

"And  do  you  see  a  great  deal  of  him?" 

"  No,  not  a  great  deal.  You  know  how  it  is  in  a  place  like 
this  with  nothing  to  do  but  see  people." 

"  How  does  it  happen  that  Mr.  Barlow's  here  —  is  he  ill  ?" 

"No,  not  in  the  least." 

"  I  see.  It's  simply  a  case  of  too  much  money.  But  why 
is  he  here  —  is  it  on  your  account?" 

"Can  you  imagine  it?" 

"  Hardly,  but  in  these  days  you  never  can  tell.  Does  he 
see  a  great  deal  of  the  Denches?" 

"  Yes,  he's  with  them  all  the  time.  I  have  every  reason 
to  suppose  that  he's  going  to  marry  Jane  Dench." 

Mrs.  Parrish's  voice  was  suddenly  pitched  sharp.  "And 
I  have  every  reason  to  suppose  that  he's  going  to  do  nothing 
of  the  sort ! " 


238  OTHER   PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"  I  have  it  from  her  mother,  but  if  you  know  more  surely 
—  if  your  authority's  better  than  that  — " 

"You  have  it  from  her  mother?" 

"Straight  —  yesterday  morning." 

"When  is  the  wedding  to  take  place?"  Mrs.  Parrish 
was  nothing,  if  not  direct. 

Emily  hedged.  "It  isn't  quite  as  definite  as  I  seem  to 
have  led  you  to  think.  It's  simply  that  I  have  it  from  her 
mother  that  he  wants  to  marry  her,  and  she's  very  much  in 
love  with  him,  and  Mrs.  Bench  is  holding  them  back  for  the 
present.  She  doesn't  want  Jane  to  marry  too  young." 

"Why,  I  understood  that  marrying  Jane  was  Mrs.  Bench's 
whole  reason  for  coming  to  this  country !" 

"Well,  there's  a  mistake  somewhere." 

"  Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Parrish,  "  there's  a  mistake  somewhere. 
You  must  think  it  queer,  my  asking  all  these  questions  about 
people  whom  I  don't  even  know ;  but  I  came  here  under  the 
very  wrong  impression  that  it  was  Ralph  Jane  was  going  to 
marry,  and  I  had  a  certain  maternal  curiosity.  He  got  back 
from  Europe  changed  and  queer  and  silent,  and  when  he  did 
open  his  mouth  it  was  to  talk  of  these  people;  though  I 
could  see  they  were  really  the  one  subject  he  was  trying  to 
avoid.  It  wouldn't  have  done,  you  know  —  you  can 
see  that.  Though  how  I  could  have  prevented  it  ... 
Those  sort  of  people  would  be  open  to  the  financial  argu 
ment,  and  I  could  have  engaged  to  cut  Ralph  off  without  a 
cent.  The  boy  makes  such  a  comfortable  sum  —  I  don't 
know — "  The  boy's  mother  sighed  with  relief.  "But  as 
long  as  what  you  say  is  true,  and  you  have  it  from  her 
mother,  it's  a  problem  that  we  shan't  have  to  consider. 
Come,  let's  go  downstairs.  Can't  we  have  tea?  I  should 
like  to  see  what  it  is  I've  escaped." 


IN  THE   MIDST  OF   BATTLE  239 

III 

It  was  the  hour  which  they  seemed  to  make  so  much  of  at 
Ocean  City,  the  hour  before  dinner.  Mrs.  Parrish  was  en 
joying  it  to  the  full ;  she  had  already  rested  from  her  travels, 
and  was  now  —  as  she  said  —  highly  refreshed  and  pre 
pared  for  anything.  In  her  whole-hearted  desire  for  adven 
ture,  she  rivalled  her  cousin  Emily.  The  adventure  which 
should  by  rights  have  been  hers  had  been  unexpectedly 
removed.  Her  son  was  safe;  the  name  of  Parrish  didn't 
need  defence;  and  there  stretched  before  her  an  entire 
week  in  which  her  only  occupation  would  be  to  live  down 
the  past  afternoon.  She  had  the  disturbing  sense  of  having 
made  a  fool  of  herself  before  her  cousin.  It  was  only  an 
impression  —  an  intuition  —  that  she  had  had  about  Jane 
Bench;  and  to  come  to  Ocean  City  on  the  strength  of  an 
impression  —  to  blurt  out  all  her  fears  into  the  ears  of 
Emily  Stedman  —  it  left  no  doubt  about  her  having  made 
a  fool  of  herself.  The  fact  was  clearly  reflected  in  the 
sarcastic  little  face  which  Emily  turned  to  her ;  and  an  ad 
venture  —  any  adventure  —  would  have  lightened  the  at 
mosphere.  She  couldn't  get  away  from  that  white  little 
face,  so  like  her  own  in  general  racial  aspect  and  so  unlike 
in  the  more  individual  marks.  It  was  as  though  her  own  were 
twisted  to  a  comic  mask  —  as  though  it  were  riddled  with 
sharp  accents.  Emily  was  cleverer  than  she;  the  face 
showed  it,  and  she  exploited  her  cleverness.  Mrs.  Parrish 
never  had  thought  this  last  to  be  quite  in  good  taste. 

The  two  women  sat  there  in  the  very  centre  of  the  big  sun 
parlor,  frankly  waiting  for  something  to  occur.  They  had 
had  tea,  and  they  had  changed  their  dresses  for  dinner,  and 


240  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

they  had  told  each  other,  for  the  tenth  time,  how  glad  they 
were  to  be  together.  Emily  had  recounted  the  details  of 
her  illness,  and  Mrs.  Parrish  had  praised  her  present  look  of 
health.  The  climate  of  Ocean  City  received  favorable 
comment.  Mrs.  Parrish  felt  its  benefits  already  —  "  I'm 
prepared,"  she  said,  "for  anything  — " 

And  into  this  expectancy  came  the  rather  inadequate 
figure  of  David  Barlow.  He  had  stepped  for  a  moment 
within  their  range  of  vision  and  responded  with  such  alacrity 
to  Emily's  greeting  that  she  felt  justified  in  asking  him  to  sit 
down.  Mrs.  Parrish  liked  him  immediately. 

"I've  heard  of  you  from  my  cousin  and  from  my  son, 
and  I  once  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  your  father.  It  was 
at  a  charity  directors'  dinner  in  Boston." 

"  Oh,  yes,  he's  very  much  interested  in  that  work." 

"Indeed,  you  don't  have  to  tell  me !  I'm  on  the  Board, 
and  I  know  what  he's  done." 

"  He's  done  a  great  deal,  I  believe." 

"  It's  really  wonderful.  And  his  knowledge  of  the  condi 
tions —  I  had  a  most  interesting  talk  with  him,  and  I 
couldn't  help  wishing  that  we  had  him  in  Boston;  but,  of 
course,  New  York  can't  spare  him." 

David  always  lent  a  willing  ear  to  praise  of  his  father. 
"It's  a  marvel  to  me,"  he  said,  "how  he  finds  the  time  to  do 
half  the  things  he  does.  He  has  his  business  interests  and 
his  charities  and  a  finger  in  the  political  pie,  and  he  rarely 
lets  a  year  go  by  without  Europe.  He  gives  one  such  a  high 
ideal  of  energy  that  for  one's  self  one  might  as  well  aban 
don  trying  to  reach  it." 

"That's  a  sentiment  unworthy  of  his  son,"  Mrs.  Parrish 
smiled. 


IN   THE  MIDST   OF  BATTLE  241 

"There,  you  see !    It's  hopeless  to  be  worthy." 

Emily  asked  the  immediate  cause  of  his  pessimism. 

"  I'm  abandoned,"  he  told  her;  "  till  you  held  out  a  welcom 
ing  hand  I  was  wandering  about  in  a  way  that  was  enough  to 
make  any  one  pessimistic." 

"You  poor  young  man !" 

.  "  Thank  you  for  your  sympathy.  I  need  it,  I  assure  you. 
I  went  for  a  stroll  after  lunch  and  returned  to  a  desert. 
There  was  no  one  to  give  me  tea  —  oh,  no  thank  you, 
you've  probably  had  yours  and  it's  too  late  —  no  one 
to  amuse  me  at  all.  I  felt  a  certain  hesitancy  about  foisting 
myself  upon  you;  I  knew  you  had  Mrs.  Parrish." 

"Where  are  your  little  friends?" 

"I  caught  the  briefest  glimpse  of  them  all  excitement 
over  a  telegram.  They  haven't  had  a  second  to  spare  me." 

"His  little  friends? —  "  Mrs.  Parrish  begged  enlighten 
ment. 

Her  begging  was  lost  in  the  rapid  flow  of  David's  narra 
tive.  "  I  asked  them  what  had  happened,  and  they  didn't 
even  bother  to  answer  me.  I  know  when  I'm  not  wanted; 
I  came  away." 

"You  had  a  hard  time." 

"  Why,  I  even  implored  Jane  to  come  and  play  with  me ; 
but  Jane  couldn't  —  her  mother  answered  for  her  —  Jane 
was  taking  a  nap.  I  jeered  at  the  excuse  for  its  falseness, 
but  Mrs.  Bench  was  unmoved  — " 

"Oh,  the  Benches !"  said  Mrs.  Parrish. 

"Bon't  you  know?  We  were  speaking  of  them  only  a 
few  moments  ago  —  Mrs.  Bench  and  her  daughter — " 

Mrs.  Parrish  knew. 

"They're  the  only  people  you  can  speak  of  down  here, 


242  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

aren't  they?"  David  put  it  to  Emily,  "I  never  saw  such 
a  dull  collection.  There's  you  and  the  Benches  and,  perhaps, 
me,  and  absolutely  no  one  else !  I'm  afraid,  Mrs.  Parrish, 
that  you'll  find  it  dull." 

The  mild  eye  regarded  him.  "I  didn't  come  to  Ocean 
City  for  gayety.  And  if  you  don't  find  it  dull  —  but,  of 
course,  with  you  the  situation's  different  — "  She  smiled 
at  him  in  a  manner  which  made  him  turn  a  puzzled  face  to 
Emily,  and  Emily  promptly  took  it  upon  herself  to 
explain :  — 

"My  cousin  persists  in  the  foolish  illusion  that  she's 
tottering  on  the  brink  of  the  grave.  She  fences  herself  in 
with  an  idea  of  age,  and  she  looks  upon  the  situation  of 
every  one  her  junior  as  'different'  from  her  own." 

The  manner  and  meaning  of  Mrs.  Parrish's  smile  had  been 
befogged.  "I  believe,"  she  said,  "that  in  these  modern 
days  there  is  no  such  thing  as  age.  We're  all  the  same  — 
the  child  of  ten  and  the  woman  of  fifty  —  our  situations  — 
our  knowledge  —  our  way  of  life." 

"You  and  Mrs.  Bench  should  get  together.  She  sym 
pathizes  with  you  absolutely." 

"Mrs.  Bench! — "  Emily  stared.  "Mrs.  Bench  goes  to 
the  other  extreme.  She's  the  very  exemplification  of  all 
that  Mrs.  Parrish  objects  to!" 

That  lady  protested  amid  the  general  laughter,  and  Miss 
Stedman  admitted  putting  it  too  strongly.  Mrs.  Parrish 
held  secretly  the  opinion  that  this  would  be  impossible, 
but  her  protestations  continued  loud:  "I  have  one  thing 
to  thank  her  for  even  before  I've  the  pleasure  of  her  ac 
quaintance,  and  that  is  the  pleasure  of  Mr.  Barlow's.  If 
she  hadn't  so  insisted  on  her  daughter's  nap — " 


IN   THE  MIDST   OF   BATTLE  243 

David  appreciated  her  putting  it  like  that.  "  You  soothe 
my  shattered  pride.  Mrs.  Bench  would  have  none  of  me 

—  she  was  absorbed  in  her  telegram." 

Emily  suggested  that  the  telegram  might  have  been  im 
portant. 

"More  important  than  I?"  David  asked.  "Oh,  if  it 
were,  she  would  have  told  me." 

Emily  again  explained.  "If  it  were  anything  requir 
ing  immediate  action,  Mr.  Barlow's  aid  would  be  inval 
uable." 

"True  devotion!  "  said  Mrs.  Parrish,  smiling. 

The  big  doors  at  the  farther  end  of  the  sun  parlor  were 
thrown  wide.  They  led  into  the  dining  room,  and  their 
opening  was  an  announcement  of  dinner.  Several  people 

—  those  who  in  David's  judgment  were  not  to  be  spoken  of 

—  rose  to  take  advantage  of  their  opportunities.    They 
had  been  waiting  for  this  very  moment  —  the  hands  of  a 
great  clock,  pointing  to  seven,  upheld  them.     But  Emily 
didn't  dine  till  the  half-hour.     Neither  did  the  Denches; 
and  as  David  made  their  hour  his,  the  opening  of  the  doors 
didn't  directly  affect  Mrs.  Parrish,  who  continued  to  await 
her   adventure.    She   looked   inquiringly   at   her   cousin. 
Couldn't  they  have  dinner?    But  her  cousin  was  talking  to 
David.    The  conversation  since  the  opening  of  the  doors 
had   taken   on   a  more  spasmodic   character.    The   chief 
weight  of  it  fell  upon  Emily,  and  she  proved  herself  equal 
to  her  burden :  — 

"Doesn't  it  seem  to  you  that  we  have  a  quite  dispro 
portionate  number  of  meals  ?  There's  nothing  to  do  here 
but  eat  —  we  live  from  feeding  time  to  feeding  time. 
We're  fast  becoming  the  most  arrant  sensualists." 


244  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"Oh  hardly!" 

"  Well,  I  admit  it's  rather  the  blind  and  passive  sensualism 
of  invalids  and  children.  We're  petted  animals  in  a  gilded 
cage  — " 

"Speaking  of  pessimism!"  said  David.  His  eyes  kept 
turning  towards  the  other  doors  —  those  through  which 
one  would  have  to  come  in  order  to  enter  the  room  from 
the  hall  and  so  pass  by  to  the  dining  room  doors  at  the 
farther  end. 

Emily  valiantly  held  him.  "It's  not  pessimism.  It's 
merely  the  artist  in  me  seeking  to  clothe  the  external 
aspect  with  drollery.  At  heart  we're  not  petted  animals 

—  at  heart  we're  not  sensualists.    Our  hearts  are  untouched 

—  our—" 

It  was  Mrs.  Parrish  who  cut  her  short.  "Oh,  Emily, 
look !  Look  at  the  lovely  girl !  — " 

"It's  Jane  Bench,"  said  David,  "and  her  mother." 

There  was  a  third  figure  that  David  didn't  for  the  moment 
connect  with  them,  the  figure  of  a  man,  big  and  blond  and 
oddly  familiar;  it  was  only  the  dimness  of  shaded  lights 
that  made  him  not  instantly  recognizable.  Mrs.  Dench 
was  sure  that  he  should  be,  however.  She  came  straight 
towards  Emily  —  straight  towards  Mrs.  Parrish  —  she  led 
him,  and  Ralph  Parrish  followed,  a  magnificent  trophy  of 
her  spear. 

Mrs.  Parrish  had  risen;  but  she  made  no  pretence  of 
meeting  her  son  halfway.  As  she  watched  his  approach, 
she  stood  still  with  a  stillness  which  was  barely  disturbed 
by  his  surprised  halt,  his  broken  exclamation  — 

"Mother!" 

She  kissed  him  tenderly,  though  her  first  words  were  to 


IN   THE  MIDST   OF   BATTLE  245 

Emily  and  cabalistic  to  the  rest.  "You  see  my  authority 
is  better  than  that." 

"  Not  necessarily — "  Most  of  Emily's  strained  eagerness 
was  for  the  look  of  triumphant  happiness  in  the  eyes  of  Mrs. 
Dench. 

Jane  turned  to  Parrish,  softly  apologetic.  "  I  knew  your 
mother  was  here  and  it  quite  went  out  of  my  head  to  tell 
you  the  good  news.  But  you  know  it  now,  and  it's  all 
the  more  delightful." 

And  then  some  one  effected  an  introduction  between  the 
three  women. 


CHAPTER  XII 

CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF  WINES 


A  WRITER  —  a  writer  with  a  book  like  "The  Cuckoo" 
to  her  credit,  appealing  as  it  does  both  to  the  critic  and  the 
cash-girl  —  gets  abominably  keen  on  the  nuances  of  the 
human  relation,  the  small  differences  between  Tweedledum 
and  Tweedledee.  A  writer  of  that  sort  has  to  —  it's  her 
stock  in  trade,  her  box  of  tricks.  Even  the  relations  which 
most  intimately  concern  her,  she  views  from  a  distance 
sufficient  to  see  them  whole.  She  doesn't  let  a  good  thing 
slip  through  her  hands  merely  for  want  of  proper  watching. 
Sometimes,  of  course,  a  thing  crops  up  which  would  seem  to 
the  lay  mind  almost  too  good,  too  intimate,  an  observation 
too  inverted,  —  but  the  habit  of  analysis  still  clings.  It's  a 
form  of  self-consciousness;  but  civilization  itself  is  a  form 
of  self-consciousness.  Highly  civilized  beings  who  are  not 
of  the  ink-ridden  brotherhood  learn  to  extract  the  full  flavor 
from  the  wine  which  they  roll  upon  their  tongues. 

Emily's  wine,  perhaps  because  she  came  to  it  with  an 
accumulated  thirst,  had  never  before  had  a  flavor  so  am 
brosial.  It  touched  and  held  the  aromatic  mean  between 
cloying  and  bitterness,  the  acrid  balancing  the  sweet  to 
which  she  had  once  been  an  uncomplaining  victim.  Her 

246 


CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF  WINES         247 

cellar,  —  and  the  houses  of  most  pale  literary  ladies  are 
constructed  without  one,  —  her  cellar  was  widely  stocked. 
It  could  claim  kinship  with  the  best.  She  might  have  up 
bottle  after  bottle  —  a  mouthful  here  —  a  glass  there  — 
and  there  would  be  no  sensible  diminution  in  the  dusty 
rows  below. 

She  had  never  before  been  so  in  the  midst.  The  human 
relation  had  never  before  been  so  stripped  for  her  inspection. 
And  it  wasn't  the  view  outside  her  window  that  she  was 
watching,  or  the  activities  of  the  people  next  door.  Other 
people  —  nonsense.  It  was  excruciatingly,  terribly  her 
self;  herself  in  her  relation  to  Ralph  Parrish,  herself  in 
her  relation  to  David  Barlow,  to  Mrs.  Bench,  to  Jane,  to  her 
cousin  Laura.  And  once  in  relation  to  them  altogether 

—  herself.     Yet  she  felt  herself  above  them  as  the  extended 
toe  of  a  music-hall  dancer  is  above  her  audience,  or  the  chirp 
of  a  grasshopper  above  thunder.  -  The  battle  raged  about 
her;  she  likened  herself  to  the  angel  of  victory  hovering 
overhead,  but  her  observations  — downward  and  inward 

—  showed  her  wings  dulled  with  dust. 

The  dust  was  the  finest  flavor  of  the  wine.  She  was  in 
the  midst  appallingly. 

Ralph  Parrish  had  come  back ;  and  with  him  her  old  pas 
sion,  refreshed.  The  newly  made  grave  was  robbed  of  its 
treasure.  The  pendulum  had  swung  again.  That  part  of 
herself  concerned  with  her  possession  of  her  cousin  was 
capering  about,  indecently  unaware  of  its  shroud.  Par 
rish  had  come  back,  a  new  Parrish,  matured  and  thinned  and 
confident,  none  the  less  splendid  for  a  certain  condensation 
of  modelling.  His  eyes  were  more  than  ever  of  slate;  and 
the  closer  clipping  of  his  mustache  didn't  quite  hide  the 


248  OTHER   PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

wide  mouth,  hardened  in  its  wideness  and  always  curled 
a  little  upward  from  the  white,  straight  teeth  beneath.  But 
the  surface  was  still  smooth  and  sleek;  the  magnificent 
physical  presence  was  still  there,  the  spread  of  shoulder 
and  length  of  limb.  Emily  felt  that  she  had  never  before 
really  seen  him.  He  had  always  been  too  near,  the  mag 
nificent  physical  presence  too  taken  for  granted.  He  had 
gone  away;  and  it  had  been  without  sight  of  him  that  her 
passion  had  come  and  lived  briefly  without  light,  like  a 
thing  killed  by  birth.  And  now  it  was  born  again. 

It  always  seemed  to  choose  for  this  feat  moments  of  stress 
—  moments  which  would  be  in  themselves  sufficiently  full. 
But  the  fulness  intrinsic  to  this  last  one  might  have  been 
forever  lost  save  for  Emily's  fixed  habit  of  analysis.  Her 
faculties  were  jerked  to  a  multiplied  activity;  her  vision 
and  her  hearing,  and,  as  Parrish  had  turned  to  her  from  his 
mother's  embrace  and  taken  both  her  hands  in  his,  her  sense 
of  that  —  she  didn't  miss  any  of  it.  She  saw  clearly  the 
triumphant  happiness  in  the  eyes  of  Mrs.  Bench,  Jane's 
unwonted  softness,  her  cousin  Laura's  tense  excitement. 
Then  the  splendor  of  the  physical  presence  had  been  too 
strong;  she  was  blinded  to  everything  but  that;  she  had 
stood  there  with  her  hands  in  Parrish's  and  the  whole  cur 
rent  of  her  strength  was  centred  in  those  hands.  Thoughts 
came  tumblingly,  —  queer,  inconsequent  images.  She  re 
membered  quite  vividly  the  University  library  at  Horn- 
mouth  and  the  faces  of  her  father  and  mother.  Tunes  ran 
in  her  head  —  not  in  any  way  suggested  by  the  one  which 
the  hotel  orchestra  was  playing.  Verses,  headless  and  tail 
less,  repeated  themselves  with  syncopated  insistence :  — 
"  Soon  to  glory  shall  he  rise  ..." 


CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR   OF  WINES         249 

"...  And  her  loud  steeds  fret  not, 
Nor  lift  not  a  lock  of  their  great  white  manes  ..." 

"The  Assyrian  came  down  like  a  wolf  on  the  fold, 
And  his  cohorts  were  gleaming  in  purple  and  gold  ..." 

The  last  was  a  memory  from  a  childhood's  admiration  of 
Byron.  It  had  extraordinarily  little  to  do  with  the  present 
circumstance. 

"  And  his  cohorts  were  gleaming  in  purple  and  gold  ..." 

She  had  looked  up  into  Ralph  Parrish's  smiling  face. 
She  was  suddenly  aware,  through  a  sentence  yet  unfinished, 
a  gesture  still  in  progress,  that  all  this  had  taken  but  a  bare 
instant  of  time.  It  was  as  if  time  had  stopped,  especially 
for  her.  She  had  looked  from  Parrish  to  David  Barlow, 
and  the  David  Barlow  she  had  loved  went  to  nothing  under 
her  eyes.  He  was  a  being  of  visions  —  of  unreality  —  a 
puppet  made  only  in  the  workshop  of  her  own  mind.  In 
his  place  was  a  young  man,  small  and  rather  pale,  with  a 
well-cut  profile  and  a  slightly  nervous  manner. 

ii 

"  I  was  terribly  sorry  to  hear  you'd  been  ill,  Emily.  But 
you  are  better  now,  aren't  you?  You're  looking  splendid. 
Isn't  Emily  splendid,  mother?"  Parrish  smilingly  de 
manded  corroboration. 

"  She's  certainly  better  than  I've  ever  seen  her." 
"Oh,  my  dear,  I'm  better  than  any  one's  ever  seen  me !" 
Mrs.  Dench  looked  at  her.     "It's  a  triumph  for  Ocean 
City,  isn't  it?" 

"It's  a  triumph,"  said  Parrish,  "for  Emily's  own  little 
pluck.  She  simply  determined  she'd  get  well,  and  she  did. 


250  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

I  think — "  he  turned  to  her —  "I  think  it  was  bully  of 
you!"  He  was  like  that  from  the  first  moment  of  his 
visit  —  singling  her  out  —  making  it  clear  how  glad  he 
was  to  see  her. 

They  were  all  dining  together  at  Mrs.  Bench's  table  — 
the  widow  had  seen  it  was  the  only  thing  —  and  they 
formed,  even  in  the  vast  spaces  of  the  'Tidewater/  a  fairly 
conspicuous  group.  There  was  Jane,  always  lovely,  and 
Mrs.  Bench  who  had  Presence,  and  Emily  in  a  gown  which 
Ralph  Parrish  lhad  not  been  the  first  to  praise.  Ralph's 
mother  lent  an  air  of  distinction,  and  the  two  men  were  a 
sufficient  contrast  to  be  something  more  than  furniture. 
It  was  a  festivity  —  a  celebration  —  and  they  all  did  their 
best  towards  its  success.  Conversation  didn't  stay  at  any 
thing  so  sombre  as  illness.  What  was  illness,  after  all,  but 
an  absence  of  health?  And  health  meant  beauty,  and 
beauty  —  But  beauty  could  be  imitated. 

Ralph  denied  it.  "There's  a  stuff  made  in  Paris  that 
comes  in  a  bottle,  and  you  put  it  on  with  a  sprayer  or  a 
blowpipe  or  something  of  that  sort.  You  come  out  the 
most  wonderful  pink;  but  that's  not  beauty!" 

"Hardly.     But  doesn't  it  in  time  wash  off?" 

"I  believe  not.  It's  supposed  to  go  with  you  to  the 
grave;  though  you  wouldn't  have  a  grave,  would  you, 
till  long  after  you'd  ceased  to  use  it?  The  alternative's 
too  horrible." 

"  Beath  might  strike  one  unawares,"  said  Mrs.  Bench. 

"Well,  it's  surely  better,"  Emily  thought,  "to  meet 
death  pinkly  — " 

Echoes  of  their  mirth  reached  the  very  end  of  the  dining 
room. 


CONCERNING   THE   FLAVOR   OF   WINES         251 

"Isn't  Emily  a  wonder,  mother?" 

Mrs.  Parrish  gave  her  assent. 

Emily,  thus  lauded,  went  on.  It  reminded  her  of  the 
brief  day  of  her  celebrity.  "You  see,"  she  said,  "if  one 
can't  have  beauty,  one  can  at  legist  have  the  other  thing  in 
an  interesting  manner  —  not  asjppne^lack.  of  bloom  were 
merely  the  result  of  stupid  ailmelits^Arid  that's  where  the 

contents  of  the  bottle  comes  in  ?!•! 

• 

"  You  speak  as  from  an  intimal^nowledge  — " 

"Not  half  as  intimate  as  the  one  you  speak  from." 

"How  should  you?    I've  but  lately  come  from  Paris." 

Mrs.  Bench  shook  her  head.  "Poor  old  Paris  never 
escapes.  She  is  almost  as  much  an  object  of  public  jest 
as  the  mother-in-law." 

"It  seems  unnecessary,  doesn't  it?  But  I  think  Ralph 
merely  meant  that  as  he'd  been  to  Paris,  and  as  it's  in  Paris 
that  this  famous  cosmetic  is  made  — "  Ralph's  mother 
shielded  him  from  even  the  suspicion  of  vulgarity. 

Again  there  was  laughter. 

Emily  took  it  upon  herself  to  ask  the  question  which  had 
been  on  the  tip  of  Mrs.  Parrish's  tongue  ever  since  her  son's 
arrival,  "How  long  do  you  expect  to  be  here?" 

"Probably  till  Monday."     It  was  then  Friday. 

Emily  counted  up  the  days  —  "Two  whole  ones  and  a 
little  over." 

He  was  at  some  pains  to  explain  how  he  had  arranged  it. 
He  and  another  man  had  been  going  down  to  the  other 
man's  place  somewhere  in  Delaware,  just  for  a  whiff  of  the 
real  spring,  and  then  this  other  man  suddenly  couldn't  go. 
Parrish  was  stranded  with  all  his  plans  made.  He  re 
membered  Ocean  City.  He  had  been  promising  himself 


252  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

the  pleasure  of  looking  in  on  them  there  —  and  now  the 
promise  was  fulfilled.  Here  he  was.  He  flung  himself 
on  their  mercy  and  hoped  they'd  entertain  him.  He  was 
sure  he  was  upsetting  things  dreadfully ;  but  he  was  so  past 
redemption  —  so  hardened  —  that  he  simply  didn't  care. 
He'd  telegraphed  to  Mrs.  Dench,  to  be  sure  they  wouldn't 
be  too  thunderstruck,  and  —  as  he  had  said  before  —  here 
he  was.  His  manner  seemed  jokingly  to  inquire  what  they 
intended  to  do  about  it. 

Mrs.  Parrish  watched  him  during  the  progress  of  this  dis 
course  with  that  little  air  she  often  had,  of  tremendous  in 
terest  combined  with  a  certain  mental  reservation.  In 
times  past  she  had  frequently  listened  to  her  husband  in 
much  the  same  way.  The  interest  paid.  She  got  some 
thing  out  of  it,  even  if  not  quite  what  it  was  intended  she 
should  get.  That  was  clear  from  the  very  apprehending 
glance  which  she  threw  across  the  table  to  Emily  and  held 
there  in  vain  for  an  answering  luminosity.  None  came. 
Emily's  eyes  were  occupied  with  Parrish's.  It  was  curiously 
from  Jane  that  she  had  her  response,  and  Jane  was  the 
enemy. 

Jane  had  been  living  up  to  her  reputation  for  quietness, 
devoting  herself  almost  exclusively  to  the  business  of  din 
ner  and  not  caring  whether  or  no  she  appeared  a  bit  dull. 
Perhaps  she  knew  how  hard  it  would  be  for  any  one  as  beau 
tiful  as  she  ever  to  appear  dull.  Her  dulness  translated 
itself  into  a  sort  of  soft  acquiescence,  a  tender,  brooding 
maidenliness.  She  listened  to  Ralph  Parrish's  description 
of  his  predicament,  his  reasons  for  having  thrust  himself 
upon  them  so  suddenly,  and  offered  no  comment.  Then 
she  looked  up  slowly  —  a  movement  of  eyes  rather  than  of 


CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF  WINES          253 

head  —  and  caught  his  mother's  apprehending  glance  full. 
The  glance  wavered  and  dropped,  as  though  traitorous,  and 
met  hers  again.  Understanding  answered  understanding, 
and  smile  answered  smile.  Speech  would  have  spoiled  it. 
The  understanding  which  sprang  up  between  the  two 
women  —  the  older  and  the  younger  —  was  of  Ralph 
Parrish,  and  needed  nothing  to  complete  it.  Jane  went  on 
with  the  business  of  dinner,  summoning  a  passing  waiter  to 
minister  to  a  want  still  unsupplied. 

"We  don't  care  why  you're  here,  you  know,  as  long  as 
you're  here.  We're  so  glad  to  have  you  for  any  reason  at 
all  that  it's  not  a  bit  necessary  for  you  to  apologize." 
David  Barlow  had  been  positively  longing,  as  Jane  would 
have  said,  for  a  brother  at  arms.  Hard,  brittle  object 
as  he  is  represented  as  being,  he  had  been  enveloped  by 
women  as  by  so  much  wrapping.  He  was  beginning  to 
feel  himself  hardly  a  man  in  a  world  of  men.  He  welcomed 
Parrish  with  a  very  real  cordiality.  "No,"  he  repeated, 
"it's  not  a  bit  necessary  for  you  to  apologize." 

"Then  I  won't,"  said  Parrish;  "I'll  devote  all  my  ener 
gies  to  making  the  most  of  my  time." 

Emily's  laugh  broke  high.  "This  way,  ladies  —  this 
way  —  don't  crowd  !  — " 

"Isn't  it  lucky  we  have  David  as  a  sort  of  consolation 
prize?"  It  was  Jane's  only  contribution  to  the  gayety  of 
her  fellow-diners. 

They  all  laughed,  but  Mrs.  Parrish  was  unexpectedly 
appreciative.  "My  dear  Miss  Dench  —  what  a  theory!" 
The  first  lady  of  Hornmouth  nearly  swallowed  her  handker 
chief  in  her  effort  to  quell  a  too  great  indignity  of  mirth; 
but  whether  it  was  amusement  at  the  implied  comparison 


254  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

between  David  and  her  son  or  merely  appreciation  of  the 
wit  of  Jane,  even  Emily,  whose  perceptions  of  the  scene  were 
very  much  alive,  couldn't  quite  make  out. 

She  came  to  a  decision,  however,  when,  at  a  late  hour, 
after  the  long  evening  had  spent  itself  and  Ocean  City  was 

—  collectively  speaking  —  asleep,  she  heard  a  timid  knock 
at  her  door  and  opened  it  to  admit  her  cousin.     Mrs.  Par- 
rish  was  prepared  for  bed  with  a  certain  New  England 
precision.     The  sprig-patterned  wrapper,  the  tight  gray 
braids  hanging  over  each  shoulder,  the  starched  ruffle  of 
her  nightgown,  all   contributed  to  an  effect   of  extreme 
personal  nicety.     Here  was  a  woman  who  didn't  throw 
herself  upon  her  couch  with  the  emotions  of  the  day  still 
warring.     She  set  her  house  in  order  at  frequent  intervals, 
physically  and   mentally.     It  was  in  the   furtherance  of 
this  last  that  she  had  come.    She  was  not  given  to  mid 
night  conferences,  and  she  didn't  indulge  in  them  unless 
she  had  something  important  to  say  —  something  which 
wouldn't  wait  till  morning. 

"I've  changed  my  mind  !" 

Emily  didn't  understand.  "Changed  your  mind  — 
about  what?" 

"My  dear,  I  thought  I'd  tell  you  —  that  Miss  Dench  — 
Jane  —  I've  never  liked  any  one  so  much." 

"You  rather  wish  now  that  it  were  true  —  that  Ralph 
were  going  to  marry  her?" 

"I've  never  seen  any  one  so  suited  to  him." 

Emily  set  down  upon  her  toilet-table  the  steel  instrument 
with  which  she  had  been  filing  her  nails.  "But  her  mother 

—  what  do  you  think  of  her  mother?" 

"I  shall  simply  have  to  accept  her.     She's  undoubtedly 


CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF  WINES         255 

dreadful,  but  she's  not  glaringly,  conspicuously  dreadful 
—  a  stranger  wouldn't  know  — " 

"Why  do  you  think  she's  dreadful?" 

"Don't  ask  me  —  I  couldn't  tell  you  why.  But  it's 
not  her  mother  that  Ralph  is  going  to  marry !" 

"Aren't  you  taking  a  good  deal  for  granted?" 

"You  mean — " 

"I  mean  that  you've  no  guarantee  that  he  either  is  or 
isn't  going  to  marry  either  of  them." 

"Is  he  attentive  to  the  mother?"  If  he  were,  the  ad 
venture  would  at  last  seem  to  have  arrived. 

"Is  he?"  said  Emily;  "why,  if  you  asked  me,  I  should 
say  yes." 

"The  engagement  must  be  broken." 

"Oh,  there's  no  engagement !" 

"Of  course  not.  I  mean  the  engagement,  if  there  is  any, 
between  Miss  Dench  and  Mr.  Barlow." 

"You  want  the  coast  quite  clear  for  Ralph?  But  sup 
pose  he  doesn't  intend  to  land  there?  I  said,  you  know, 
that  I  thought  him  attentive  to  the  mother." 

"The  mother  —  nonsense!"  Mrs.  Parrish  voiced  her 
scorn.  She  explained  at  some  length  that  Ralph  was  not 
that  sort  of  man.  She  became  still  more  lucid,  "I  don't 
say  that  he  wouldn't  be  capable  of  going  any  length  you 
like,  but  he'd  marry  the  daughter." 

The  comic  mask  of  Emily's  face  was  folded  and  crum 
pled  in  laughter.  "My  dear  Cousin  Laura,  where's  your 
morality?" 

"When  I  see  a  girl  like  Jane  Dench,  my  morality  upholds 
me  in  leaving  no  stone  unturned  to  secure  her  for  my  son." 

"  If  he  will,  he  will,  you  know;  and  if  he  won't,  he  won't." 


256  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"You  think  I  shall  do  no  good?  You  don't  understand 
him  in  the  least!" 

"Aren't  you  glad  that  I  don't?" 

"Oh,  you'd  be  quite  impossible  for  Ralph."  Mrs.  Par- 
rish's  attention  was  momentarily  diverted  —  "Tell  me, 
why  do  you  powder  your  nose  at  this  hour?" 

"It's  a  special  kind  of  powder  that's  supposed  to  be  very 
beneficial  to  the  skin."  Emily  buried  her  whole  face  in  its 
midst  and  emerged  white,  but  triumphant.  "Very  bene 
ficial.  You  said  I  would  be  impossible  for  Ralph  —  for 
whom  would  I  not  be?" 

"  Why  not  for  Mr.  Barlow  ?  "  Mrs.  Parrish  was  nothing 
if  not  direct ;  but  it  was  clear  that  Emily  thought  her  plan 
the  best  joke  she'd  heard  in  years.  The  wine  was  of  a 
flavor  delicate  and  varied ;  and  Emily,  in  spite  of  the  ful 
ness  and  fatigue  of  her  day  —  perhaps  because  of  it  —  was 
well  able  to  appreciate  it. 

She  let  her  cousin  wait  for  a  reply.  It  finally  came. 
"Never  —  never  in  the  world !  — " 

in 

Parrish  arranged  his  mother  and  Emily  at  the  far  end  of 
the  long  piazza  —  the  end  that  turned  and  gave  a  view  of 
the  gorgeous,  windy  sunset  —  he  tucked  them  in,  he  bundled 
them  up ;  he  was  as  devoted,  as  deferential,  as  if  they  hadn't 
been  merely  his  two  nearest  living  female  relatives.  He 
stood  there  facing  them,  his  back  against  a  great  white 
column,  one  hand  on  the  piazza  railing,  in  the  other  his 
interminable  cigarette.  He  was  perfectly  easy,  perfectly 
given  up  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  moment.  His  ease  and 
his  enjoyment  were  like  a  great  hand  laid  soothingly  upon 


CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF  WINES    257 

the  troubled  unrest  of  his  companions.  For  Mrs.  Parrish's 
natural  gladness  at  her  son's  presence  was  tempered  by  the 
disquieting  sense  that  he  should  have  been  with  Jane  — 
that  he  was  wasting  precious  time;  and  Emily's  gladness 
was  not  so  much  tempered  as  fused  and  parched  by  the 
desire  to  have  him  to  herself.  The  precious  time  was  going, 
second  by  second  and  minute  by  minute.  It  seemed  to 
her  as  though  she  had  waited  for  this  all  her  life  —  this 
seeing  love  face  to  face.  The  years  when  she  had  known 
Parrish  at  Hornmouth,  the  period  of  the  late  thirties,  the 
new-made  grave,  the  vision  of  David  Barlow,  all  these  were 
but  the  developing  experiences  which  now  enabled  her 
really  to  see. 

She  was  quite  shameless.  She  was  absolutely  aware  that 
when  Parrish  wasn't  with  her,  arranging  her  wraps  and  her 
chair,  telling  her  in  a  thousand  ways  how  much  he  liked  her, 
he  was  performing  similar  offices  for  Mrs.  Bench.  And  that 
was  where  her  shamelessness  came  in,  for  she  didn't  care. 
In  fact  —  still  more  shameless  —  as  she  looked  on  at  Mrs. 
Dench  and  her  cousin,  the  thrill  of  the  spectator  was  not 
unknown  to  her.  She  was  the  first,  or  rather  the  only  one, 
fully  to  take  the  situation  in.  A  novelist  becomes  of 
necessity  sharp  in  matters  of  that  sort,  and  her  intimate 
knowledge  of  Parrish  made  it  all  the  simpler  —  she  knew 
so  well  what  with  him  certain  looks  and  expressions  meant. 
Though  there  was  extraordinarily  little  upon  which  one 
could  lay  a  finger.  It  seemed  to  be  an  achievement  of  the 
intangible  by  two  people  who  neither  of  them  suggested  it. 
They  were  essentially  of  the  same  race;  without  a  physical 
resemblance  they  had  yet  come  out  of  the  same  mould; 
and  it  would  have  been  more  than  stupid  of  them  not  to 


258  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

have  finally  found  each  other  out.  And  to  the  spectator, 
artistically  inclined,  their  finding  left  little  to  be  desired. 
They  understood  each  other's  language  without  a  fault ;  and 
their  difference  of  years  was  a  mere  moment  in  the  aeons 
that  had  passed  since  they  had  been  young  together 
upon  Olympus.  Which  circles  about  again  to  the  ques 
tion  of  time,  and  Emily's  appreciation  of  its  fleeting 
nature. 

If  she  had  waited  all  her  life  for  this  unblinded  faculty 
of  sight,  she  had  also  waited  for  the  opportunity  to  use  it. 
It  was  upon  her  now  —  her  opportunity  —  her  turn  — 
and  the  chances  were  strong  that  it  might  not  be  again; 
for  Ralph  Parrish  was  no  longer  hers,  even  in  the  sense 
that  he  had  been  during  the  period  of  the  late  thirties. 
But  his  past  —  his  future  —  even  that  part  of  his  present 
which  didn't  concern  her  —  troubled  her  but  little.  There 
was  a  part  of  his  present  which  did  concern  her ;  that  time, 
rapidly  running  out,  when  he  was  with  her,  devoted,  defer 
ential  and  admiring,  and  she  basked  in  the  light  of  the 
magnificent  physical  presence.  That  was  her  opportunity. 
Her  conception  of  grasping  it  wasn't  too  beyond  the  bounds 
of  the  possible ;  it  wasn't  much  that  she  asked  —  the  tan 
gible  —  that  part  of  his  present  which  did  concern  her  to 
be  made  wholly  hers.  If  she  was  in  the  midst,  it  only  showed 
her  what  the  midst  might  really  be.  Her  vision  of  it  was 
vivid  —  but  she'd  done  with  visions ;  she  wanted  memories. 
This,  her  opportunity,  might  pass  and  leave  behind  only  the 
memory  of  a  vision  —  splendid,  if  you  like  — 

She  stirred  in  her  wrappings,  and  leaned  forward  to  re 
arrange  the  hanging  fringed  border  of  the  steamer  rug  which 
Parrish  had  tucked  about  her  knees. 


CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF  WINES    259 

"You're  not  comfortable  !"  It  seemed,  the  way  he  said 
it,  a  horrible  condition. 

"Yes,  I  am;  but  I'm  not  very  warm." 

Mrs.  Parrish's  sense  of  responsibility  was  roused. 
"You're  not  warm?  —  Why,  that  won't  do  —  get  up  and 
walk  about." 

"I  think  I  will." 

Parrish  stooped  to  pick  up  the  rug  which  Emily  in  ris 
ing  let  fall.  "I'll  come  with  you.  Mother,  won't  you? 
We'll  just  have  a  turn  about  the  piazza." 

"No  thank  you,  Ralph,  I'll  stay  here.  Why  don't  you 
look  up  the  Denches  and  ask  them  to  have  tea  with  us?" 

"  I  hardly  like  to  bother  them.    They're  with  Barlow." 

"A  man  who  lets  himself  be  beaten  by  little  Mr.  Bar 
low  !  " 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  — "  Parrish  might  have 
said  more,  but  Emily  was  waiting  for  him. 

She  took  his  arm.  "These  early  spring  days  are  treach 
erous.  A  chill  descends  —  But  Parrish  cut  her  short :  — 

"Tell  me  —  what  does  mother  mean?" 

"What  she  says,  I  suppose,  or  rather  what  she  intimates." 

"And  what  does  she  intimate?" 

"That  she  hasn't  any  use  for  a  man  who  lets  himself  be 
beaten  by  David." 

"Well,  I  must  say  she  goes  wading  in  queer  puddles  !" 

They  walked  in  silence  to  the  opposite  bend  of  the 
piazza.  At  the  bend  they  swung  about,  and  it  was  on  this 
homeward  stretch  that  they  again  found  words.  "Do  you 
know,  there's  a  question  I  should  very  much  like  to  ask 
you?" 

"Well,"  said  Emily,  "ask  it." 


260  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"I  don't  know  whether  I've  the  right  to." 

"You  won't  know,  will  you,  till  you've  asked  it?" 

"  It's  this.    Why  is  mother  here  ?  " 

"To  stay  with  me." 

"Is  that  really  the  reason?  I'm  afraid  you'll  think  me 
prying,  but  it's  a  matter  that  rather  concerns  me,  as  I  had 
the  impression  that  she  was  here  on  some  business  of  mine." 

"What  business  of  yours  could  she  be  on?" 

"That's  what  I  don't  know.  It  goes  without  saying 
I'd  be  perfectly  charmed  to  explain  anything  to  her.  My 
life,  as  you  know,  is  an  open  book.  He  who  runs  may  read 
—  who  was  it  said,  he  who  reads  may  run  ?" 

"I  don't  know.     Were  they  thinking  of  you?" 

Emily  felt  a  tighter  pressure  on  her  arm.  "Oh,  I'm 
frightful!"  Parrish  seemed  to  exult  in  his  frightfulness, 
for  his  gayest  laugh  rang  out.  "Yes,  I'm  frightful,  but 
we  won't  talk  of  that.  These  early  spring  days  are,  as  you 
say,  treacherous  —  a  chill  descends.  You're  warmer  now  ? 
Tell  me  if  I  set  too  much  of  a  pace." 

"Indeed,  no." 

"You're  the  same  bully  little  girl.  I  shouldn't  call 
the  great  Miss  Stedman  a  little  girl,  should  I?  But  you 
are  little ;  and  as  for  your  age,  I  think  my  standard's  grown 
horribly  high,  because  I  think  any  one  under —  well,  we 
won't  say  what  —  any  one  under  that  a  mere  chicken." 

They  reached  the  far  end  again  and  exchanged  greetings 
with  Mrs.  Parrish.  "You're  quite  all  right?" 

"Quite  all  right!  " 

Parrish  was  giving  himself  up  to  the  enjoyment  of  this 
moment  also.  In  fact,  it  was  to  his  talent  for  giving  him 
self  up  that  he  owed  his  success  in  the  art  of  wholesale  fur 


CONCERNING  THE   FLAVOR  OF  WINES         261 

dealing.  When  he  worked  he  worked,  and  when  he  played 
he  played  —  the  line  between  was  clearly  defined. 

"Why  didn't  you  answer  my  letter?" 

Emily  replied  to  him  in  the  same  gay  vein.  "Why 
didn't  you  send  me  another?" 

"I  was  so  mortally  hurt  by  your  neglect.  Even  if 
you  were  ill  and  couldn't  write  yourself,  you  could  have  at 
least  sent  me  word.  It's  not  the  way  to  treat  an  old  friend 
and  cousin." 

"But  it  surely  wasn't  the  way  to  treat  one  —  to  go  off 
without  saying  good-by." 

"My  dear  Emmy  —  you  know  I  tried  to  get  you  on  the 
wire.  I  couldn't  wait  over;  the  steamer  sailed.  You  surely 
can  guess  how  I  must  have  felt  at  not  being  able  to  get  you  ! " 
It  was  in  the  nature  of  an  accusation,  and  the  blame  seemed 
hers  —  Parrish  went  on.  "Do  you  remember  my  letter?" 

"Perfectly." 

"I  mentioned  in  it  a  fur  collar  to  match  your  big  muff. 
It's  waiting  for  you  in  New  York.  You'll  take  it,  won't 
you,  to  show  we're  still  the  same?" 

"The  same?" 

"As  good  friends  as  ever." 

"You  got  it  especially  for  me?" 

"For  whom  else  ?  And  it's  very  new.  I  assure  you  it  will 
be  quite  in  it  for  next  winter.  It's  flat  with  a  sort  of  ruffle, 
and  then  another  band  of  fur  on  the  edge  of  the  ruffle." 

Emily  laughed  with  a  joy  more  than  adequate  to  the 
prospective  ownership  of  the  collar.  "I'll  take  it,"  she  told 
him,  "and  bless  you  for  the  thought." 

"Then  we  are  the  same?"  It  was  just  because  they 
weren't,  and  never  could  be,  that  Parrish  talked  of  it  so 


262  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

much.  He  wanted,  for  some  reason  of  his  own,  to  make 
her  think  so  —  to  bridge  the  winter's  gulf.  It  might  have 
been  that  without  this  bridge  his  enjoyment  of  the  moment 
would  be  incomplete.  There  was  something  almost  fawn 
ing,  like  the  psychic  counterpart  of  the  leaping  endearments 
of  a  great  dog,  in  his  constant  reiteration  to  his  cousin  of 
the  fact  of  his  continued  affection. 

And  she  accepted  it  as  she  did  the  collar  without  too 
much  questioning.  For  once  reasons  and  causes  didn't 
trouble  her;  all  her  analysis  was  focussed  on  the  result. 
The  result  was  the  increasing  of  her  opportunity.  She 
was  feverishly  afraid  of  its  passing;  she  clung  to  Parrish 
in  a  very  agony  of  fear,  and  her  joy  came  in  a  sudden  realiza 
tion  that  this  very  clinging  was  a  part  of  the  tangible  she 
asked  for.  He  felt  the  little  clinging  creature,  and  the 
chord  of  masculine  humanity,  with  him  so  glaringly  easy 
to  strike,  responded.  He  held  her  close  with  a  supporting 
arm.  It  was  sufficiently  commonplace,  this  linked  walk 
on  a  hotel  piazza,  but  the  commonplace  —  perhaps  because 
she  had  never  had  it  —  was  translated  by  Emily  into  a  sort 
of  glory.  The  author  of  "The  Cuckoo"  was  very  young  in 
the  observances  of  love;  her  excursions  into  the  tender 
passion  had  always  been  so  largely  a  matter  of  her  own 
sentimental  imagination,  fine-spun  subtleties  of  talk  and 
of  thought,  that  that  which  might  weary  the  more  sophisti 
cated  with  its  vulgar  triteness  seemed  to  her  neither  vulgar 
nor  trite.  She  might  have  been  capable,  had  the  oppor 
tunity  offered,  of  covertly  holding  Parrish's  hand  or  sitting 
—  less  covertly  —  upon  his  knee.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
thought  and  talked  herself  out ;  there  was  nothing  left  for 
her  but  the  magnificence  of  the  physical  presence.  She 


CONCERNING  THE   FLAVOR  OF  WINES         263 

gave  herself  up  to  it  as  Parrish  did,  more  abstractly,  to  his 
enjoyment.  They  arrived  by  different  roads  at  very  much 
the  same  place. 

rv 

"  Emily !  —  Ralph  !  —  "  Mrs.  Parrish  had  pursued  them 
down  the  entire  length  of  the  piazza. 

"Yes?" 

"I've  just  received  a  message  from  Mrs.  Dench  asking 
if  we  won't  come  up  and  have  tea  with  her  in  what  the  bell 
boy  calls  her  private  sitting-room." 

"Are  you  going?"  asked  Parrish. 

"I  think  so;  are  you?" 

"Shan't  we  all?" 

Emily  added  her  voice  to  the  rest.  "Does  she  mean  at 
once?" 

"She  must;  it's  late." 

"There's  nothing  in  the  nature  of  dressing?" 

"Oh,  I'm  sure  not." 

They  made  their  way  inward,  and  Parrish  placed  his 
thumb  on  the  elevator  bell.  "Any  one  would  think,"  he 
said,  "that  we'd  never  had  tea  before.  I've  never  passed 
such  a  restless  day  —  nobody  seems  to  be  able  to  stay 
in  the  same  place  for  five  minutes  at  a  time.  To-morrow 
being  Sunday,  I  suppose  we'll  be  more  calm  —  the  little 
dove  of  peace  will  descend  among  us  — " 

The  door  of  the  private  sitting-room  was  open  in  cordial 
greeting  and,  at  her  guests'  approach  down  the  long  hall, 
Mrs.  Dench  herself  came  out  to  them.  "Ah  —  here  you 
are.  Mrs.  Parrish,  I'm  so  glad  !  You'll  forgive  my  infor 
mality,  but  I've  been  rather  expecting  you  all  the  afternoon, 


264  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

and  it  suddenly  came  over  me  that  I  hadn't  said  anything. 
Of  course,  you  wouldn't  know." 

Mrs.  Dench  was  at  her  most  urbane,  and  her  urbanity 
lent  to  the  simple,  friendly  gathering  a  certain  aspect  of 
ceremony.  She  offered  to  the  other  widow  the  compli 
ment  of  her  hospitality:  "Cream?  Sugar? — "  It  was 
clear  to  them  all  that  the  other  widow  was  eating  her  salt. 
To  say  that  Mrs.  Dench  was  not  glaringly,  conspicuously 
dreadful  seemed  a  very  negative  method  of  describing  her 
high  dignity.  It  really  took  a  situation  like  this  to  show 
her  to  the  best  advantage,  to  show  how  perfect  her  com 
mand  of  it  could  be.  Ralph  Parrish,  with  the  freemasonry 
of  his  sex,  was  one  of  her  intimate  circle;  David  Barlow 
also ;  even  Emily,  with  the  lesser  freemasonry  of  the  single 
state,  hovered  on  its  edges ;  but  Mrs.  Parrish  was  of  another 
element  entirely.  The  fact  of  her  foreignness  was  plain,  and 
Mrs.  Dench's  treatment  of  it  was  masterly.  If  she  was 
obviously  the  hostess,  she  was  no  less  obviously  the  wan 
derer  but  lately  returned  from  distant,  unenlightened  parts. 
She  begged  that  the  newer  civilization  of  the  West  might  set 
her  straight,  and  in  payment  she  would  provide  real  Russian 
tea  from  a  real  Russian  samovar.  It  was  to  be  a  sort 
of  hands  across  the  sea,  lion  lying  down  with  the  lamb, 
arrangement. 

"You  know,"  she  said,  "I  think  jt's  cosier  in  a  place  that 
one  can  call  one's  own,  even  though  two  weeks  before  some 
one  else  was  calling  it  his  own.  Jane  and  I  are  perfect 
Arabs,  we  pitch  our  tent  wherever  there's  an  oasis  in  the 
desert;  we  arrange  the  little  handful  of  our  household 
gods—" 

"They're  so  very  charming  —  your  household  gods." 


CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF  WINES    265 

Mrs.  Parrish  herself  had  a  tendency  towards  the  pure 
colonial,  but  she  could  still  appreciate  that  Mrs.  Dench's 
things  were  rare  of  their  kind. 

"Ah  —  thank  you .  The  small  rug  is  old  Chinese,  and  that 
reddish  water  color  is  supposed  to  be  a  Watteau,  but  beyond 
that  I  haven't  anything." 

"You're  much  too  modest !" 

Parrish  had  been  talking  with  Jane.  He  now  turned. 
"Mrs.  Dench's  modesty  is  the  one  thing  which  stands  in  the 
way  of  her  success  in  life." 

"I  know  it,"  said  the  lady  thus  censured;  "so  you've 
always  told  me." 

Parrish  laughed.  "So  I  always  shall.  Apropos  of  noth 
ing  at  all,  I  was  thinking  how  nice  it  would  be  if  to-morrow 
we  should  all  celebrate  the  day  by  going  to  church.  Don't 
you  think  we  might?  It  would  give  us  such  an  orderly 
feeling  for  the  afternoon,  and  as  I  have  to  go  back  the  next 
morning  at  the  crack  of  dawn  — " 

"I'll  go  to  church  with  you,"  said  Jane. 

"And  I,"  said  David  Barlow.  It  was  pathetic,  the  com 
fort  he  took  in  Parrish's  society. 

Emily  explained  how  it  was  in  the  merest  self-defence 
that  she  would  join  herself  to  the  expedition.  She  would 
have  to  prove  herself  as  religious  as  the  men. 

Mrs.  Dench  addressed  Mrs.  Parrish.  "That  leaves  the 
old  ladies.  Shall  we  stay  at  home,  or  shall  we  go  —  hand 
in  hand?" 

Mrs.  Parrish  was  taken  a  little  by  surprise.  "Why,  if 
you  don't  mind,  I  think  I'll  stay." 

"  You're  wise.    I'll  stay  too." 

"You  see,"  said  Mrs.  Parrish,  "I'm  rather  a  queer  person 


266  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

about  church.  Unless  there's  a  clergyman  whom  I  es 
pecially  care  to  hear,  or  unless  it's  to  uphold  the  honor  of  my 
family  at  Hornmouth,  I  feel  that  I'm  equally  saved  by  a 
quiet  morning  by  myself." 

"By  yourself  —  I  too  —  so  many  people  all  at  one  time 
—  it's  too  much.  Americans  take  care  of  their  souls  so 
stiffly.  For  me  I  prefer  the  freer  continental  interpreta 
tion  of  Sunday." 

"There's  a  great  deal  to  be  said  in  its  favor." 

But  Parrish  couldn't  agree.  "We  need  to  be  held  to 
account  occasionally  —  made  to  put  our  best  foot  foremost 
at  least  once  a  week.  There's  an  instinct  of  order  which  is 
usually  suppressed,  and  on  Sunday  we  should  give  it  an  air 
ing.  I  hate  to  see  things  at  loose  ends.  There  should  be  a 
time  —  a  time  for  gathering  them  up."  He  was  standing 
before  the  window  in  one  of  his  easy,  characteristic  attitudes, 
and  he  looked  down  upon  the  little  company  which  his 
presence  so  dominated  with  an  air  as  if  what  he  said  would 
be  accepted.  He  left  them  no  choice.  He  was  installed; 
his  position  there  in  the  charming,  drapery-hung  room  was 
assured.  The  rest  of  them,  with  the  exception  of  his  host 
ess,  were  but  passers  —  distinguished,  if  you  like  —  honored 
and  welcomed  and  made  much  of  —  but,  nevertheless, 
passers. 

Emily  received  it  full  —  this  impression  of  his  establish 
ment  there ;  and  she  was  reminded  of  that  other  afternoon 
when  she  had  had  tea  with  Mrs.  Bench  and  received  the 
same  impression  about  David  Barlow.  Where  was  David 
Barlow  now  ?  The  question  could  only  be  put  in  its  slangier 
significance,  as  he  was  obviously  sitting  on  the  French  sofa. 
But  where  was  he  as  the  centre  of  the  group  —  where  was 


CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF   WINES         267 

he  as  the  masculine  pivot  upon  which  the  feminine  forces 
turned?  It  was  said  at  the  outset  that  he  presented  the 
masculine  in  great  perfection  —  was  its  very  finest  essence, 
of  a  fineness  and  hardness  which  approached  to  brittleness, 
with  the  compactness  of  bronze  and  a  hawkish  gleam  which 
contrasted  oddly  with  the  suggestion  —  unmistakably  con 
veyed  —  of  a  cleverly  constructed  marionette.  He  had 
been  too  fine,  too  hard ;  his  brittleness  was  never  designed 
for  rough  wear.  It  had  reached  a  point  of  attenuation ;  it 
had  reached  —  with  Parrish's  new  splendor  for  comparison 
—  a  kind  of  meagreness;  the  hawkish  gleam  missed  fire; 
the  marionette  was  left  pathetically  without  motive  power. 
Emily's  love  for  him  ended  as  it  had  begun  with  a  sense  of 
pity. 

Her  pity  couldn't  last,  however.  Her  sense  of  it  could 
hardly  hold  its  own  against  her  sense  of  so  much  else.  She 
was  in  the  midst.  The  flavor  of  the  wine  clung  to  her  palate ; 
the  wine  itself  ran  riot  through  her  blood.  She  felt  that  the 
whole  of  living  was  to  be  concentrated  into  the  time  which 
would  elapse  before  the  morning  after  the  next,  and  that 
time  was  already  slipping.  She  was  on  the  edge  of  a  great 
excitement.  The  line  that  divides  the  credible  from  the 
incredible  was  rubbed  out.  She  looked  straight  away  down 
a  vista  which  contained  at  the  other  end  Ralph  Parrish. 
Her  chance  of  the  tangible  had  never  before  been  so  close; 
she  stood  ready  to  grasp  it  as  she  might;  her  scruples  proved 
their  tact  by  their  absence.  It  was  her  first  acquaintance 
with  temptation;  but  she  didn't  at  once  identify  it  as  that. 
Her  conception  of  temptation  was  of  a  struggle ;  there  was 
nothing  of  struggle  in  this  simple,  unobstructed  view.  She 
stood  ready  —  the  desire  for  life  was  strong  upon  her  — 


268  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

it  depended  on  her  cousin.  The  situation  was  stripped  to  its 
simplest  elements;  there  was  not  room  for  the  hesitations 
that  would  usually  arise. 

There  had  been  no  word  between  Parrish  and  herself. 
They  had  walked  together  on  the  'Tidewater'  piazza,  arm 
in  arm,  talking  in  a  half -flirtatious,  half -cousinly  way  of 
indifferent  matters;  and  Emily,  by  the  very  simplicity 
of  her  desire,  had  unerringly  touched  a  responsive  chord. 
He  had  held  her  close,  head  bent  down  to  hers;  and  she, 
with  her  ringers  clasping  the  rough  cloth  of  his  coat  sleeve, 
felt  as  she  had  before,  when  he  had  turned  to  her  from  his 
mother  and  taken  her  hands  in  his,  that  all  her  strength  and 
her  possibilities  of  strength  and  of  sense  were  centred 
there. 

That  first  contact  had  been  the  beginning  of  her  great 
excitement.  She  was  still  held  miraculously  on  its  perilous 
edge.  She  waited  for  the  full  force  of  it  to  burst.  It 
hadn't  burst  as  she  had  walked  with  Parrish  on  the  'Tide 
water'  piazza;  it  wouldn't  do  so,  surely,  now  as  she  drank 
her  tea  with  Mrs.  Dench  and  Jane  and  the  rest.  She  had  a 
sense  of  waiting  —  of  a  suspense  which  caught  her  breath. 
She  found  herself  counting  the  time  which  measured  the 
length  of  her  opportunity  with  a  new  impatience.  She 
thought  of  the  calm  certainty  of  the  morning  after  the  next, 
and  prayed  for  its  coming.  Parrish  would  have  left,  and 
she,  with  her  time  run  out,  would  have  eased  her  fatigued 
tenseness  over  the  memory  of  her  opportunity,  either  seized 
or  lost. 

The  morning  after  the  next.  She  counted  on  —  by 
the  afternoon  after  the  next  Ocean  City  would  have  again 
lapsed  into  its  earlier,  gentler  ways.  She  would  retire  more 


CONCERNING  THE   FLAVOR  OF  WINES         269 

into  herself;  she  would  let  the  Benches  and  David  Barlow 
decide  their  problems  without  her.  With  her  returned  pas 
sion  there  had  come  to  her  the  strong  vision  of  "Mrs.  Dal- 
lowfield."  She  was  sending  for  blank  yellow  pads,  and 
during  the  next  months  she  would  set  herself  to  the  task  of 
making  them  less  blank.  Her  counting  rushed  on  and  took 
in  the  possibility  of  a  return  to  the  late  thirties.  If  she 
did  that,  what  about  the  measure  of  her  opportunity? 
Wouldn't  it  be  extended  indefinitely  ?  With  Parrish  there 

—  at  the  Town  Club  —  at  the  offices  of  the  wholesale  fur 
dealers  —  the  late  thirties  between  . . .     But  she  felt  that 
she  only  deceived  herself;  her  cousin's  future  did  not  belong 
to  her.    It  belonged  —  at  least  that  part  of  it  with  which 
she  might  have  been  concerned  —  to  the  women  in  the 
window  of  whose  parlor  he  was  then  standing.    He  might 
leave  Ocean  City  on  Monday;  he  might  go  to  the  farthest 
end  of  the  earth,  but  his  position  in  front  of  that  window 

—  in  front  of  any  window  which  the  Benches  might  call 
their  own,   however  briefly  —  was  an  assured,  familiar 
thing. 

In  the  late  thirties  his  position  had  been  assured  also 

—  he  had  been  free  to  come  and  to  go;  there  was  a  welcome 
for  him,  a  cigarette,  a  cup  of  tea,  often  a  dinner.    But  all 
that  was  of  the  past;  Emily  bowed  before  the  new  order. 
Her  bowing  was  actual;  it  took  more  strength  than  she  was 
in  possession  of  to  hold  herself  erect ;  but  this  very  lack  of 
strength  had  its  own  rewards.     It  seemed  to  make  lighter 
the  atmosphere  —  to  make  of  it  a  thinner  medium  in  which 
that  which  was  usually  hidden  from  sight  showed  clear. 
Though  she  felt,  rather  than  saw,  the  new  order.    She  looked 
for  its  visible  sign  and  found  it  in  a  certain  gleaming  strange- 


270  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

ness  in  the  eyes  of  Mrs.  Bench.  It  was  as  if  a  flame  crossed 
them  rapidly,  flaring  and  flickering,  and  leaving  in  its  path 
a  deepened  amber  —  a  dilated  prominence.  Mrs.  Bench 
was  still  devoting  herself  to  her  most  honored  guest,  still 
occupied  with  a  treatment  of  the  situation;  but  there  was 
in  her  eyes  that  which  was  utterly  at  variance  with  her  occu 
pation.  It  was  something  back  of  the  playing  flame,  only 
lighted  by  it  as  a  streamer  is  tossed  by  a  wind  —  a  hard  in- 
tentness  almost  masculine  in  its  unveiled  meeting  with 
Parrish's  more  general  regard.  He  turned  away  from  it 
instinctively  with  a  little  gesture  of  deprecation  which 
happened  to  fit  in  with  a  view  he  happened  to  be  expressing 
about  the  continental  Sunday.  He  didn't  believe  in  it 
at  all. 

Jane  was  also  of  his  opinion. 

Bavid  Barlow  frankly  didn't  know. 

Emily  cared  less.  She  was  bent  like  a  reed  before  Mrs. 
Bench's  hard  intentness.  She  saw  her  opportunity  winged 
for  flight.  It  was  as  if  she  put  out  her  hands  to  keep  it,  and 
suddenly  it  was  too  late  —  the  time  that  measured  it  was 
over  —  had  never  been. 

On  the  plea  of  a  very  real  fatigue  she  made  her  adieus. 
Sympathy  flooded  her.  She  always  seemed  so  well,  and  it 
was  hard  to  realize  she  really  wasn't.  Was  there  nothing  ? 
Not  a  thing.  What  strength  she  had  got  her  into  the 
hall.  She  felt  better  then,  but  it  seemed  more  a  matter  of 
will  than  of  actual  steps  by  which  she  reached  her  room. 
She  shut  and  locked  the  door  —  shut  and  locked  the  door 
leading  into  the  room  occupied  by  her  maid.  She  picked 
up  a  kind  of  knitted  coverlid  that  hung  folded  over  the  back 
of  a  chair  and  wrapped  it  round  her.  Then  she  walked 


CONCERNING  THE  FLAVOR  OF  WINES          271 

deliberately  over  to  her  bed  and  lay  down.  She  lay  there, 
still  at  the  edge  of  her  great  excitement,  still  waiting  for  the 
full  force  of  it  to  burst.  It  did  so  presently  in  loud,  wrench 
ing  sobs.  Her  whole  body  was  shaken;  she  cowered  and 
recoiled,  and  her  sobs  —  tearless  —  were  like  these  flinching 
movements  made  audible. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

LAUS  VENERIS 


THE  reflection  of  the  sun's  light  still  in  the  sky  dimmed  to 
grayness;  and  the  wind  veered  to  the  east,  driving  in  from 
the  sea  a  thin  sea  fog  that  came  through  the  open  window 
and  hung  about  the  room  in  little  vaporous  masses.  They 
settled  lightly  here  and  there,  touching  objects  of  their 
choice  with  slender,  floating  tendrils  which  themselves 
rested  and  clung,  letting  the  larger  masses  pass  them. 
Emily  was  conscious  of  soft  moisture  on  the  cheek  unpro 
tected  by  her  pillow,  and  the  knitted  coverlid  was  wet. 
She  was  conscious,  also,  of  the  smell  of  the  salt  and  the 
heavy  break  of  the  surf  below.  She  found  herself  waiting 
for  it,  listening  as  the  sound  gathered  and  deepened  and 
seemed  to  hang  suspended  breathlessly.  She  thought  of  the 
sea  as  a  giant  clock  with  ticks  widely  interspaced. 

It  didn't  tell  her,  however,  the  thing  for  which  clocks  are 
supposed  to  exist.  It  might  be  midnight;  it  might  be  the 
darkened  hour  before  dawn;  it  might  be  early  evening. 
She  had  been  aware,  dimly,  of  sounds  within  the  'Tide 
water' —  of  that  nameless  movement  which  even  in  the 
quietest  of  hotels  makes  itself  felt  at  the  dinner  hour.  There 
had  been  in  the  air  the  faint  scraping  of  violins,  a  vibration 
rather  than  music.  She  had  heard  at  her  door  the  solicitous 

272 


LAUS  VENERIS  273 

voice  of  her  cousin  Laura.  But  now  the  sounds  within  the 
'Tidewater'  had  sunk  to  a  blessed  quiet;  the  booming  surf 
had  undisturbed  and  glorious  possession.  It  was  loud  and 
deep  and  even;  and  under  its  mesmeric  influence  she  must 
have  fallen  into  a  light  doze,  for  she  knew  that  people  were 
knocking  at  the  door  which  led  to  her  maid's  room,  and 
she  was  hopelessly  incapable  of  either  speech  or  action. 
The  knocking  continued  more  and  more  sharp,  and  at  last  by 
a  Herculean  effort  of  will  she  emitted  an  answering  mono 
syllable.  She  was  told  that  she  had  locked  the  door  — 
both  doors.  The  fact  seemed  self-evident.  She  must  open 
them.  But  why?  In  order  to  let  them  in.  And  who 
were  they?  Her  maid  and  her  cousin  Laura.  But  she 
detected  the  deeper  masculine  burr.  The  request  in  this 
key  took  the  note  of  a  command.  She  rose  and  made  her 
stumbling  way  across  the  floor,  fumbled  with  the  lock,  and 
at  last  stood  revealed  in  the  flooding  electricity. 

She  was  a  strange  little  figure,  with  her  crumpled  dress 
and  her  disordered  hair  and  her  face,  that  was  usually  so 
evenly  white,  blotched  and  congested  with  the  recent  force 
of  her  excitement.  It  had  not  left  her  more  charming  — 
this  excitement.  She  was  ugly  as  all  things,  at  once  violent 
and  small,  are  ugly.  She  blinked  owlishly  in  the  sudden 
light,  and  at  the  same  time  succeeded  in  directing  at  her 
visitors  an  angry  curiosity  like  that  of  a  burrowing  animal 
driven  by  intruders  to  the  mouth  of  its  hole.  She  didn't 
speak  at  first.  No  one  spoke.  But  when  she  did,  it  was 
with  the  point  and  emphasis  of  an  accusation :  — 

"Dr.  Jeffries!" 

The  great  doctor,  who  had  been  standing  a  little  behind 
Mrs.  Parrish  and  the  maid,  now  moved  in  front  of  them. 


274  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"  Miss  Stedman  —  I  happened  to  be  passing  —  I  thought 
that  I  would  stop  in  and  see  how  you  were  — " 

"  Happened  to  be  passing  at  half-past  three  in  the  morn 
ing?  You  were  doing  nothing  of  the  sort!  You  came 
all  the  way  from  New  York  especially  to  stop  in  —  you 
were  sent  for  by  Mrs.  Parrish."  That  lady  was  seared  in 
the  heat  of  her  cousin's  rising  anger  —  "  Why  Mrs.  Parrish 
took  it  upon  herself  to  send  for  you  is  beyond  me  —  quite. 
Who  am  I  to  be  treated  like  a  child,  lied  to  and  managed  ? 
Who  am  I?  It's  half-past  three — "  Emily  pointed  to  a 
small  metal  timepiece  which  was  conspicuously  placed  on 
the  bureau  —  "  half-past  three  and  you  all  come  knocking 
at  my  door,  disturbing  my  night's  rest,  working  yourselves 
up  into  a  state  of  nerves  because  you  think  I'm  ill.  You 
ought  to  be  abed  and  asleep.  I'm  not  ill  —  not  in  the  least. 
I  never  was  better  in  my  life."  She  followed  Mrs.  Parrish's 
downward  glance.  "You  think  it  strange  that  I  should 
have  gone  to  bed  in  my  clothes.  Haven't  I  a  right  to  go  to 
bed  in  my  clothes?  You  think  it  strange  that  I  didn't 
have  any  dinner.  Haven't  I  a  right  not  to  have  it  ?  One 
might  think  that  I  occupied  a  prison  or  a  very  modern  and 
modified  sort  of  tomb,  instead  of  being  a  free  citizen  of  a 
free  country.  A  free  country  —  Mrs.  Dench  can  have 
her  Paris  and  her  Riviera,  all  her  things — " 

The  last  sentence  was  punctuated  and  cut  short  by  the 
sudden  retirement  of  the  speaker.  She  seemed  to  have 
decided  that  she  had  said  enough;  the  key  grated  in  the 
lock.  Her  would-be  benefactors  couldn't  get  away  from  the 
realization  that  they  had  been  unceremoniously  turned  out; 
the  door  was  shut  directly  in  their  kindly  faces.  They  were 
a  second  in  recovering  from  the  surprise  of  it,  and  then 


LAUS  VENERIS  275 

Dr.  Jeffries  illuminated  the  situation  with  an,  "Ah  —  you 
see !  —  " 

"Aren't  you  going  to  do  anything?" 

"My  dear  madam,  what  can  I  do?" 

A  clutching  fear  was  at  Mrs.  Parrish's  throat.    "Is  she 

—  is  she  ?  —  No,  I  can't  ask  it !" 

Dr.  Jeffries  turned  to  the  maid.  "Would  you  very  kindly 
step  out  into  the  hall  for  a  moment  ?  Now,"  he  said,  "  what 
is  it  you  can't  ask?" 

Mrs.  Parrish  looked  up  at  him  in  a  vain  effort  to  read  in 
his  wise  eyes  an  answer  to  her  unspoken  question.  "Oh, 
tell  me  without  my  asking  —  it's  too  horrible." 

The  doctor  waited. 

"  It's  about  Emily  —  Emily's  mind." 

"You  wonder  if  she's  losing  it?" 

"That's  it.     Ah,  you  must  tell  me  absolutely — " 

"I  do  tell  you  absolutely.     She's  as  sane  as  you  or  I." 

Mrs.  Parrish's  fear  still  held  her.     "You'd  swear?" 

"  On  my  honor." 

"I  didn't  mean,  you  know,  that  she  was  a  raving  maniac 

—  merely  queer  —  unstrung  — " 

"You're  right,"  said  Dr.  Jeffries,  "when  you  say  she's 
unstrung." 

Mrs.  Parrish  made  him  sit  down,  and  did  so  herself. 
She  again  begged  him  to  be  frank  with  her  —  to  tell  her 
what  he  thought  without  reservation.  For  if  she  couldn't 
understand  Miss  Stedman's  case,  who  was  there  who  could  ? 
She  was  her  own  cousin,  her  nearest  of  kin,  and  who  had  a 
better  right?  Dr.  Jeffries  demanded  in  return  a  frankness 
on  her  part  also.  A  doctor  was  always  at  a  disadvantage, 
coming  in  from  the  outside,  and  it  was  only  fair  to  minimize 


276  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

it  as  far  as  possible.  Mrs.  Parrish  did  her  best  to  put  him  in 
possession  of  the  facts.  She  told  him  how  well  her  cousin 
had  seemed,  how  she  had  been  struck  from  the  first  moment 
of  her  arrival  by  her  —  for  her  —  splendid  condition.  It  was 
hard  to  believe  she'd  been  ill  at  all;  her  illness  seemed  to 
have  done  her  good  rather  than  harm.  At  dinner  she  had 
amused  them  all  — 

"When  you  say  all  —  ?" 

"  Myself  and  my  son,  who  arrived  unexpectedly,  and  some 
friends  who  are  stopping  here,  a  Mrs.  Bench  and  her  very 
charming  daughter  and  young  Mr.  Barlow,  who,  as  you 
know,  is  the  son  of  the  Barley  Bun  man." 

Dr.  Jeffries  suggested  the  word  'animated'  as  a  possible 
description  of  Miss  Stedman  at  dinner.  "And  then  what? 
What  happened  after  that?" 

"Nothing  that  I  can  recall.  We  had  a  talk  late  that 
night  about  a  matter  which  concerned  me  far  more  than  it 
did  her." 

"You're  sure?" 

"Sure?" 

"Sure  it  didn't  contain  for  her  some  hidden  meaning?" 

"Oh,  absolutely!" 

"And  then?" 

"  This  afternoon  she  complained  of  feeling  cold,  —  we 
were  sitting  on  the  piazza,  —  so  I  made  her  get  up  and  walk 
about.  Mrs.  Bench  asked  us  to  tea,  and  it  was  while  we  were 
having  it  that  this  attack  must  have  come  to  her.  She  left 
us  abruptly,  and  as  she  didn't  appear  at  dinner,  I  went  to 
her  room  to  inquire  how  she  was.  She  sent  me  away  — 
rudely  —  it  was  almost  as  if  she'd  sworn  at  me.  I  was 
worried,  I  had  a  sort  of  panic  — " 


LAUS  VENERIS  277 

"And  then?"  The  doctor  held  her  to  the  facts  of  her 
narration. 

"And  then  I  met  young  Mr.  Barlow  in  the  hall.  He 
seemed  to  divine  my  trouble;  he  asked  me  if  there  was  any 
thing  he  could  do.  It  was  he  who  suggested  sending  for 
you.  We  telephoned  —  you  know  the  rest.  You  caught 
the  midnight  train;  Mr.  Barlow  met  you  at  the  station;  here 
you  are.  I  can  see  that  you  curse  me  for  cheating  you  of 
a  night's  sleep." 

"Ah  —  I've  learned  not  to  think  of  that."  He  seemed 
bent  on  a  close  examination  of  the  wicker  arm  of  his  chair, 
and  Mrs.  Parrish  hesitated  to  interrupt  him.  She  left  him 
to  his  silence,  and  her  patience  was  at  last  rewarded.  "I 
trust  you'll  understand,"  he  said,  "that  it's  wholly  in  an 
effort  to  get  at  the  facts  that  I  ask  you  if  this  young  Mr. 
Barlow  hasn't  a  rather  personal  interest  in  your  cousin?" 

"Not  at  all.  I'm  sure  I  wish  he  had;  I  couldn't  imagine 
anything  nicer;  but  he's  very  much  interested  in  another 
young  lady." 

"Is  his  interest  in  this  other  young  lady  comparatively 
recent?" 

"No,  I  think  it's  been  going  on  for  some  time." 

"This  talk  —  you'll  pardon  my  persistence  —  this  talk 
that  you  and  Miss  Stedman  had  last  night,  did  it  concern 
Mr.  Barlow?" 

"No,  only  indirectly.     It  concerned  my  son." 

"The  reason  I  ask  is  that  she's  evidently  been  through 
some  great  excitement  —  received  some  vital  shock  —  but 
of  course  if  you  have  no  knowledge  of  it,  there's  nothing 
more  to  be  said.  She's  not  ill,  and  she's  not  insane.  She 
ought  to  be  diverted  —  amused  —  taken  away.  It's  the 


278  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

sort  of  thing  before  which  we  find  ourselves  particularly 
helpless." 

"I'm  sure  you're  mistaken  about  her  having  received  a 
shock.  Isn't  it  merely  a  return  of  her  first  illness  ?  " 

"In  a  sense,  yes.  But  it's  not  as  serious.  A  woman  like 
your  cousin  gradually  burns  herself  out.  She  hasn't  it  in 
her  to  receive  vital  shocks  very  often.  They  take,  you 
know,  a  certain  native  vitality."  Dr.  Jeffries  rose. 

"You're  going?" 

"As  I  said,  it's  the  sort  of  thing  before  which  I  find  myself 
helpless.  Divert  her  —  amuse  her  —  take  her  away." 

Mrs.  Parrish  rose  also.  "Just  one  word.  Would  you  be 
so  very  kind  as  to  settle  this  little  matter  with  me?  I  feel 
a  responsibility  about  your  having  come,  and  as  long  as  you 
can  really  do  nothing  for  my  cousin . . .  My  address  is 
Hornmouth." 

He  treated  the  question  of  settling  with  the  disdain  of 
greatness.  "Hornmouth's  a  charming  old  town.  I  al 
ways  remember  with  such  pleasure  a  visit  that  I  once  paid 
there  to  my  old  friend  and  teacher,  Dr.  Rainor." 

"You  know  Dr.  Rainor?" 

"Indeed,  yes,  and  I've  had  the  honor  of  meeting  your 
uncle,  Miss  Stedman's  father.  His  death  was  a  sad  loss  to 
science." 

"Ah  — I  know—" 

Dr.  Jeffries  had  got  into  his  overcoat,  and  he  was  now 
drawing  on  his  gloves.  "  You  come  of  a  very  distinguished 
family,  Mrs.  Parrish,  a  line  of  scholars  and  scientists  of 
which  you  may  be  justly  proud.  In  this  present-day  world 
of  glitter  and  rush  a  whole-hearted  devotion  to  an  intellec 
tual  cause  is  rare.  Your  little  cousin,"  —  he  nodded  towards 


LAUS  VENERIS  279 

the  closed  door, — "  your  little  cousin,  there,  has  a  gleam  of  it. 
I  have  never  read  her  book.  I  get  little  time  for  the  contem 
porary  novel,  and  I  imagine  'The  Cuckoo'  comes  very  much 
under  that  head.  If  it  wasn't  for  this  bothersome  habit  of 
hers  of  going  completely  to  smash  . . .  The  force  of  the 
engine  is  too  great  for  the  strength  of  the  machine.  She 
hasn't  learned  to  economize  it ;  there's  a  constant  waste  of 
energy  going  on  within  herself.  She's  possessed  with  a 
perfectly  normal  desire  for  the  normal  things  with  which 
normal  people  furnish  their  lives;  she  hasn't  learned  the 
great  lesson  that  those  things  are  not  for  her.  It's  the  old, 
old  story  of  the  man  who  tries  to  lift  himself  by  his  boot 
straps." 

Mrs.  Parrish  had  with  difficulty  been  keeping  up  with  her 
celebrated  visitor's  exuberance  of  imagery.  She  cloaked 
her  breathlessness  —  "  Ah  —  how  well  you  understand  her ! " 

"Passably,  passably.  Well,  I  must  be  off.  I  hear  my 
faithful  automobile  snorting  impatiently.  It  followed  me 
down  here,  as  there  is  no  train  back  which  would  get  me  in 
town  at  the  time  I  must  be  there.  Good-by." 

He  was  gone,  and  Mrs.  Parrish  remained  where  he  had  left 
her,  staring  blankly  at  the  blank  white  door  which  led  into 
her  cousin's  room. 

ii 

"I  suppose  you've  heard  the  extraordinary  news?" 
Mrs.  Parrish  shot  it  out  at  her  son  before  he  had  even  had 
time  to  unfold  his  napkin.  She  had  been  waiting  for  him 
and  had  watched  him  with  an  undisguised  impatience  as  he 
made  his  leisurely  way  through  the  big  dining  room.  His 
perfection  irritated  her.  She  herself  was  a  trifle  worn  from 


280  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

her  night's  vigil ;  she  had  effaced  the  look  of  it  in  an  added 
spotlessness,  —  if  such  a  thing  were  possible,  —  but  the  strain 
was  there.  He  was  so  marked  by  the  absence  of  strain,  so 
sleek  and  so  shaven,  his  night's  sleep  and  morning's  toilet 
so  successful.  He  had  been  like  that  as  a  boy,  meeting  the 
new  day  with  a  freshness  which  confused  the  less  fortunate ; 
he  had  been  then,  as  now,  often  the  cause  of  the  surrounding 
disturbance. 

He  unfolded  his  napkin  and  spread  it  across  his  well- 
trousered  knees;  he  picked  up  the  menu  card  and  wavered 
long  in  a  choice  between  bacon  and  eggs  and  broiled  mack 
erel.  "What  news?" 

"About  Emily." 

"No,  I've  heard  nothing  about  Emily  except  that  she 
wasn't  feeling  very  well  last  night." 

"She  was  feeling  extremely  ill,  but  it  hasn't  prevented  her 
from  going  to  New  York." 

Parrish  stared.  "To  New  York?  I  should  think  it  was 
extraordinary!" 

"It  would  be  difficult,"  said  Mrs.  Parrish,  "for  anything 
to  be  more  so." 

"  But  I  don't  understand.  How  did  she  get  to  New  York  ? 
There  is  no  train  early  Sunday  morning." 

"She  went  in  Dr.  Jeffries'  automobile." 

"Dr.  Jeffries?" 

"I  sent  for  Dr.  Jeffries  because  she  seemed  ill,  and  when 
he  came,  she  shut  the  door  in  his  face  —  she  would  have  none 
of  him.  We  had  a  little  talk,  he  and  I,  and  when  he  went 
down  to  get  into  his  machine  to  go  back,  there  he  found  her 
sitting  waiting  for  him.  He  returned  and  told  me,  but  he 
wouldn't  force  her  to  stay ;  he  said  if  she  really  wanted  to 


LAUS  VENERIS  281 

.  go,  it  was  the  best  thing  for  her.    We  saw  to  it  that  she  was 
well  wrapped  up  — " 

"Mother  dear  —  I  think  you  all  must  have  gone  out  of 
your  heads  !  Why  didn't  you  call  me  ?  " 

"You'd  have  done  no  good.  And  you  must  remember 
that  it  was  nearly  four  o'clock.  Mr.  Barlow  gave  me  all  the 
assistance  necessary.  He  got  Dr.  Jeffries  for  me  —  he 
calmed  the  hysterics  of  Emily's  maid  —  he  explained  to  the 
night  clerk  what  a  usual  proceeding  it  was  that  a  lady  should 
decide  to  go  to  New  York  at  four  in  the  morning.  Really, 
he  was  most  kind." 

"Has  she  left  for  good?" 

"Yes,  for  good.     Her  things  are  being  packed  now." 

Parrish  was  suddenly  struck  with  a  happy  possibility. 
"Is  Barlow  packing  them?" 

His  mother  seemed  to  consider  the  question  unworthy. 
He  changed  his  tone.  "But  why  —  why?  What  put  it 
into  her  head?" 

"You  mean  the  idea  of  her  sudden  departure?  You 
know  more  about  that  than  I  do.  She  left  with  your  name 
on  her  lips." 

Parrish  was  obviously  worried.  "What  —  in  heaven's 
name?" 

"She  said  I  was  right  about  you  —  you  were  capable  of 
anything." 

"Capable?" 

Mrs.  Parrish  made  a  supreme  effort.  "  I  think  she  thinks 
that  you  and  Mrs.  Dench  are  —  what  shall  I  say  ?  —  well, 
that  there's  more  than  there  ought  to  be  between  you.  I 
think  it's  why  she's  leaving  —  she  doesn't  like  it." 

"  If  it  were  true,"  said  Parrish,  "  I  shouldn't  like  it  myself. 


282  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

My  standards  may  be  low,  but  they're  not  as  low  as 
that!" 

11  You  mean?—" 

"I  mean  I'm  not  given  to  poaching  on  other  men's 
preserves." 

Mrs.  Parrish  was  slow.  "Whose  preserves  do  you 
mean?" 

"To  be  disgracefully  frank,  I  mean  David  Barlow's." 

"But  Emily  gave  me  to  understand  that  he  was  practi 
cally  engaged  to  the  daughter." 

"The  daughter  —  fiddlesticks  !" 

Jane,  in  a  dull  black  dress,  —  she  always  wore  black  on 
Sunday,  —  was  eating  a  solitary  breakfast,  and  she  smiled 
over  at  them  from  her  distant  table.  The  dress  was  com 
mented  on.  Mrs.  Parrish  thought  the  custom  savored  of 
Romishness.  Her  son  rather  liked  it. 

"Well  — "  Mrs.  Parrish  hesitated,  "it  surely  is  a  fault  in 
the  right  direction.  Does  Mrs.  Dench? — "  She  paused, 
expectant. 

"Mrs.  Dench ?    Lord,  no !  — " 

"She  seems  to  be  a  very  interesting  woman.  She's 
been  in  such  interesting  places.  She  was  telling  me  some 
thing  of  her  nomad  life  last  evening." 

Parrish  broke  open  a  muffin.  "Yes,"  he  said,  "she's  a 
perfect  mine  of  anecdote." 

"But  on  the  whole  I  prefer  Jane." 

"In  spite  of  the  black  dress?" 

"In  spite  of  the  black  dress." 

Jane  came  over  to  them  when  her  breakfast  was  ended 
and  inquired  about  their  cousin.  "I'm  so  sorry  that  Miss 
Stedman's  not  feeling  up  to  the  mark.  If  there's  anything 


LAUS   VENERIS  283 

we  can  do,  —  mother  asked  me  to  tell  you,  —  we'd  be  only 
too  delighted." 

"Why,  thank  you,  you're  kind;  but  Emily  was  feeling 
better  and  she's  gone  to  New  York  most  unexpectedly." 

"She  hasn't !  Well,  of  course,  then  she  must  be  feeling 
better." 

"Oh,"  said  Parrish,  "ever  so  much  !" 

"I'm  glad,"  said  Jane,  "ever  so  glad."  She  lingered  and 
hovered,  and  Parrish,  who  had  arisen  to  his  feet  at  her 
coming,  asked  her  to  sit  down  with  them.  But  she  couldn't 
do  that.  "Mother  is  not  yet  up,  and  she'll  wonder  where  I 
am.  You're  not  forgetting,  Mr.  Parrish,  that  you're  going 
to  church  with  me?" 

"Never  in  the  world  !" 

"Ah,  you  mustn't .  .  .  I'll  be  downstairs  at  half-past 
ten." 

Parrish  watched  her  as  she  turned  away,  slim  and  tall, 
and  his  slate  eyes  deepened  as  if  to  the  deliberation  of  a 
problem.  He  liked  Jane  almost  as  much  as  his  mother  liked 
her;  he  was  very  much  alive  to  her  rare  qualities;  he 
realized,  perhaps  more  than  his  mother,  their  advantages. 
With  most  young  men  Jane's  beauty  and  the  strong  fresh 
ness  of  her  youth  would  sufficiently  recommend  her;  but 
Parrish  had  seen  beauty  before  —  the  contents  of  a  bottle 
and  the  gift  of  nature  —  and  he  didn't  find  it  for  certain 
purposes  all-sufficing.  It  was  the  perfection  of  Jane's  moral 
fibre  rather  than  that  of  her  physical  which  made  to  him  the 
greatest  appeal.  It  was  her  wonderful  goodness.  Her 
goodness  was  an  impregnable  fortress  through  which  she 
looked  and  behind  which  she  stood.  That  was  as  it  should 
be;  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  semi-fortified  ground. 


284  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

But  Jane's  goodness  was  not  merely  a  matter  of  the  specifi 
cally  feminine  virtues.  She  could  be  depended  upon  to  do 
the  right  thing ;  she  had  a  sense  of  honor  as  well  as  of  virtue ; 
she  walked  the  straight  path  because  for  her  it  was  the 
only  one. 

Later,  as  he  knelt  beside  her  in  the  church  of  her  faith, 
Parrish's  consciousness  of  her  goodness  reached  a  sort  of 
spiritual  exaltation.  He  felt  himself  in  the  presence  of  a 
divine  thing ;  he  felt  uplifted  —  carried  out  of  his  perfect, 
usually  too  retentive,  body.  There  was  something  far  more 
splendid  than  the  planet  of  which  he  had  always  been  such 
an  able  inhabitant,  and  it  seemed  as  though  for  a  moment  he 
had  a  blurred  glimpse  of  it.  It  surely  wasn't  the  church  at 
which  he  was  aware  of  looking  so  fixedly,  or  the  quiet 
ordered  congregation,  or  even  Jane's  golden  head  bent  in 
prayer.  The  April  sunlight  slanting  through  a  stained 
window  slanted  straight  towards  it,  and  the  gold  grew 
luminous  like  metal  or  a  torch  held  in  dimness.  It  was  her 
only  brightness ;  the  black-robed  figure  might  —  else  — 
have  been  that  of  some  slender,  ministering  nun,  it  seemed 
so  far  removed  from  earthly  glories. 

But  wasn't  it,  after  all,  merely  an  intenser  earthliness  — 
an  intenser  physical  being  than  is  possessed  by  the  ordinary 
mortal  —  which  made  Jane  seem  transcendent  ?  There  was 
nothing  about  her  of  the  pictured  angel  haloed  in  heavenly 
light.  She  brought  to  the  spiritual  something  of  her 
mother's  dominance;  she  bent  to  its  uses  something  of 
Mrs.  Bench's  extraordinary  force.  Parrish  remembered 
another  spring  Sunday,  a  Sunday  on  which  in  the  course  of 
wholesale  fur  dealing  he  had  found  himself  marooned  in 
London.  In  quest  of  diversion  he  had  walked  the  empty 


LAUS   VENERIS  285 

Sunday  streets  and  had  come  upon  a  band  of  Salvationists 
singing  at  a  street  corner.  They  had  lifted  strong  voices  to 
the  praise  of  their  God,  and  their  faces,  rugged  from  hard 
ship,  shone  vivid  in  the  soft  London  haze.  Parrish  had 
stood  by  with  bared  head ;  he  felt  himself  then,  as  now,  in 
the  presence  of  a  divine  thing  —  he  felt  uplifted,  carried  out 
of  himself  —  and  then,  as  now,  the  rushing  pulses  of  life 
had  swept  him  off  his  feet;  the  earthly  power  of  the  strong 
voices  and  the  rugged  faces  had  been  the  final  note. 

He  noticed  the  clearness  of  Jane's  outline,  firm  against  the 
light,  and  the  fine  straightness  of  nose  and  brow.  It  was 
her  physical  perfection  —  no,  it  was  her  physical  nobility, 
which  was  also  moral.  She  would  do  the  right  thing,  she 
would  recognize  the  right  thing  when  it  came  her  way; 
and  she  would  bring  to  this  second,  more  difficult  task  all 
the  unspoiled  sight  of  youth. 

They  walked  back  together  in  the  sunny  midday. 
The  sun  had  burnt  away  the  fog  and  the  wind  had  died, 
leaving  the  sea  like  the  great  wrinkled  skin  of  an  elephant's 
back.  The  air  was  soft,  much  as  it  had  been  upon  that  other 
Sunday,  and  vitalized  through  its  softness  with  salt  and 
flowers  and  the  indefinable  chemistry  of  crowds.  For  the 
crowds  had  come  to  Ocean  City;  they  were  no  longer  a  myth 
and  a  promise.  It  was  as  if  Emily,  in  leaving,  had  sent 
them  in  her  stead ;  they  seemed  to  have  sprung  up  in  the 
night  or  gathered  as  to  a  fire.  The  place  had  been  filling 
at  times  imperceptibly,  and  now  suddenly  it  was  full. 
Even  the  week  before,  when  the  Benches  were  reminded  of 
the  Riviera,  it  had  not  been  like  this.  It  had  been  cleared 
for  action;  the  suspense  had  been  held  and  had  risen;  the 
question  had  been  asked.  And  now  came  the  action  itself 


286  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

—  no  longer  denied  —  and  the  answer.  But  Emily  wasn't 
there  to  hear  it.  She  had  left  before  the  play  was  over,  dis 
turbing  its  smooth  course  by  the  confusion  of  her  departure. 
The  play  went  on  without  her,  and  Parrish  should  not  be 
too  much  condemned  for  his  part  in  it.  His  occupation 
with  the  moment  —  his  moment,  always  —  precluded  his 
occupation  with  those  past.  It  had  been  for  him  a  mere 
flash  in  the  pan,  a  final  flaring  —  his  impulse  of  yesterday ; 
his  impulse  of  to-day  rested  on  solider  foundations.  It  was 
conceived  of  his  reason,  his  cold  admiration  —  forged  in 
the  exaltation  of  his  soul  —  and  returned  again  to  his  reason., 
the  nebulous  beginning  of  an  idea. 

in 

At  the  desk  of  the  'Tidewater '  the  church-goers  came  upon 
David  Barlow.  He  explained  that  he  had  been  settling 
his  weekly  bill,  and  taking  that  opportunity  for  a  little 
conversation  with  the  head  clerk. 

"  Complaints?" 

"Oh,  dear  no,  praise.  Of  course  you  pay  here,  but  you 
get  a  good  deal." 

"Indeed  you  do,"  said  Parrish.  "Why  didn't  you  come 
with  us  to  church  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  Jane,  "why  didn't  you?" 

He  thrust  forward  a  pile  of  newspapers  that  he  was  carry 
ing  under  his  arm.  "I  got  started  on  these.  They  were 
too  fascinating." 

"I'll  say  this  for  you  !"  Jane  told  him.  "You're  compli 
mentary !" 

"Well,  I  saw  you  starting  out  and  I  had  a  sense  —  a 
sense  —  I  should  say  I  had  the  sense  — "  He  hesitated. 


LAUS   VENERIS  287 

"Not  to  come?"  Jane  helped  him,  "You  needn't  have, 
at  all.  There  was  no  reason,  was  there,  Mr.  Parrish  ?" 

"I  should  say  not !" 

Jane  looked  about.     "Where's  mother?" 

"I  don't  know;  I  haven't  seen  her." 

Parrish  asked  the  same  question  concerning  his  mother. 

"I  don't  know  that,  either.  She  was  in  the  sun  parlor  a 
while  ago.  We  had  the  nicest  chat;  she  and  I  get  on  beauti 
fully." 

"Ah,"  laughed  Parrish,  "now  I  see  why  you  didn't  come 
with  us.  I'm  my  mother's  natural  protector,  and  you'll 
answer  to  me  if  you  harm  a  hair  of  her  head  !" 

"Let's  go  up,"  said  Jane;  "I  think  mother's  upstairs, 
and,  being  Sunday,  I  think  she'll  have  something  for  you." 

"Not  for  you,  too?" 

"No,  not  for  me.  It's  what  you  Americans  call  a 
cocktail." 

They  were  convulsed  with  the  humor  of  it. 

Jane  was  right  in  her  surmise.  The  cocktail,  in  its 
scattered  parts,  was  waiting  for  them  —  Mrs.  Dench,  also. 
She  confronted  Parrish  with  his  sanctity,  "You're  a  true 
saint,  and  besides,  think  how  stupid  it  is  for  Jane  to  have 
to  go  alone !" 

"Don't  you  ever?" 

"Oh,  often  and  often.  But  there's  something  a  little 
unsatisfying  to  me  about  the  church  at  Ocean  City.  Every 
one  has  his  religion,  you  know,  if  he's  fortunate  enough  to 
discover  it ;  he  goes  to  it  as  a  Swedenborgian  soul  to  his  hell, 
and  avoids  all  others  like  the  plague."  She  altered  the 
position  of  one  of  the  black  leather-covered  volumes,  seem 
ing  in  some  way  to  point  her  moral  at  the  same  time  that  she 


288  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

made  room  for  the  pail  of  ice  brought  by  a  bell-boy.  "Set 
it  here  —  that's  right  —  thank  you.  David,  you  didn't 
go.  Fm  surprised;  you're  so  overjoyed  at  having  another 
man  to  speak  to,  that  I  shouldn't  think  you  could  let  him 
out  of  your  sight  for  a  moment.  Now,  a  woman  could  exist 
quite  pleasantly  if  she  never  saw  another  woman  from  one 
year's  end  to  the  other  —  but  a  man  — " 

"A  man,"  said  Jane,  "has  so  many  little  habits  which 
lose  half  their  point  unshared." 

"You  mean  his  little  drinks  and  his  little  smokes?  Be 
cause  I  don't  think  David's  dependent  on  those,  and  besides, 
I'm  always  ready  to  sacrifice  myself  to  the  good  cause  —  I'll 
smoke  with  him ;  I'll  even  upon  an  occasion  like  this  drink 
with  him,  though  alcohol's  a  friend  of  my  arch-enemy,  fat, 
and  therefore  occasions  like  this  are  rare.  It  seems  to  me 
that  man's  desire  for  his  kind  goes  deeper  than  that.  If 
not  in  these  days  a  superior  animal,  he's  still  generally 
conceded  to  be  a  different  one ;  and  with  another  of  his  own 
kind  he  finds  a  greater  peace." 

"He  takes  off  his  coat  and  rolls  up  his  sleeves?" 

"Yes,  that's  it.  There's  an  ease  of  talk  and  silence,  an 
understanding  and  an  equality.  It's  the  thing  I  envy 
most,  the  casual  companionship  between  men." 

"You  should  have  been  one,  mother."  Jane  called  it 
from  the  next  room,  where  she  was  taking  off  her  hat. 

Mrs.  Dench  appealed  to  Parrish.  "  If  you  had  a  daughter 
like  that,  what  would  you  do  ?" 

"The  question  is,  what  would  I  do  if  I  hadn't  ?"  It  had 
been  decided  by  common  acclaim  that  Parrish  should  have 
the  concocting  of  the  American  national  drink,  and  he  was 
deep  in  his  task. 

"That,"  said  Mrs.  Dench,  "is  your  present  predicament." 


LAUS  VENERIS  289 

"Do  you  think  me  clever  enough  to  get  out  of  it  ?" 

"I  should  hate  to  see  you  try." 

"My  dear  Grace — " 

David  Barlow  had  been  circling  about  in  a  rather  aimless 
fashion,  looking  here  and  there,  examining  with  accustomed 
eyes  Mrs.  Dench's  little  store  of  treasure,  effacing  himself  as 
he  had  grown  to  do  when  the  conversation  did  not  particu 
larly  include  him ;  but  at  the  pronouncing  of  his  hostess's 
more  familiar  name  he  turned  his  head.  It  was  the  kind  of 
thing  for  which  one  had  to  be  prepared  with  Mrs.  Dench ; 
she  allowed  her  friends  a  freedom  —  a  freedom  of  which  in 
some  ways  David  Barlow  had  never  availed  himself.  There 
were  ways  in  which  he  had,  of  course  —  ways  which  might 
make  his  drawing  of  a  line  seem  absurdly  quixotic;  it  was 
usual  to  carry  all  the  freedoms  along  together;  but  that 
was  his  own  affair.  He  had  never  called  her  Grace; 
to  do  so  would  strangely  seem  to  him  impertinently  lacking 
in  respect.  It  was  very  often,  in  the  ordinary  course,  Mrs. 
Dench,  and  once  he  remembered  it  was  Light  of  my  Life, 
but  that  had  been  drowned  in  her  derisive  mirth.  Parrish 
called  her  Grace,  with  the  casualness  with  which  he  might 
call  him  Barlow.  That  was  it  —  it  was  the  tone,  not  the 
name,  that  had  shocked  him  to  stillness.  It  was  a  tone  he 
had  never  achieved  with  any  woman  —  not  even  back  in 
that  glittering  period  before  he  had  stood  on  the  deck  of  the 
Ballerina  and  watched  the  boat  from  the  French  yacht. 

It  had  come  to  him,  a  flash  of  greater  brightness  in  the 
midst  of  the  bright,  still  ocean,  bearing  the  message  which 
was  to  destroy  him.  Before  that  he  had  had  faith  in  himself, 
visions  of  greatness  and  glory.  After,  the  visions  were  all  of 
Mrs.  Dench,  and  the  glory  was  all  hers.  If  he  had  been  given 


290  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

to  foisting  the  blame  for  his  woes  upon  an  unkind  Provi 
dence,  he  would  have  cursed  the  fate  which  had  brought  him 
to  her.  She  had  seemed  to  wait,  like  a  net  set  by  a  fisher, 
with  the  blue  depths  of  the  Mediterranean  all  about  her; 
and  he  was  a  fish  with  golden  scales.  He  remembered  the 
prettier  metaphor  of  Emily  Stedman  —  Venus  arisen  from 
the  sea.  The  Duke  of  Clopin's  yacht  was  her  cockle-shell. 
The  Duke  de  Clopin  had  called  her  Grace;  but  it  hadn't 
seemed  to  matter.  Nothing  mattered  then  but  her  whose 
name  it  was.  And,  before,  he  had  despised  love.  He  had 
looked  forward  to  a  long  vista  of  blessed  years  entirely 
without  it.  He  would  still  have  despised  it,  except  that 
you  didn't  despise  a  power  that  tossed  you  about  at  its 
whim  —  flung  you  and  shook  you  —  and  held  you  on  the 
point  of  its  sword  as  a  struggling  insect  is  held  on  the  point 
of  the  scientist's  scissors.  A  power  like  that  was  worthy 
of  something  better  than  an  egotist's  scorn. 

But  its  very  strength  was  fatal  to  his  egotism,  fatal 
to  his  faith  in  himself  —  his  own,  individual  entity.  He  felt 
it  slipping  from  him  —  this  precious  armor  of  his  personality 
—  and  a  glimpse  he  caught  of  himself  in  one  of  Mrs.  Dench's 
gilded  mirrors  showed  him  a  David  Barlow  whose  hardness 
was  worn  sharp  and  whose  fineness  thin.  He  lived, 
moth-like,  at  the  edge  of  the  consuming  fire,  and  he  found 
himself  powerless  to  go,  much  as  Emily  —  sleeping  — 
had  been  powerless  to  answer  the  knocking  at  her  door. 

It  came  to  him  that  the  mirror  into  which  he  looked  was 
his.  His,  also,  the  little  silver  paper-cutter  with  the  stones 
set  in  the  handle,  and  the  rug  on  which  he  trod.  He  was  a 
fish  with  golden  scales;  but  the  value  of  the  net  couldn't 
be  reckoned  in  gold.  It  could  be  reckoned  only  in  the  thing 


LAUS  VENERIS  291 

that  he  had  paid,  and  he'd  paid  the  price  to  which  no  man 
has  the  right  —  the  thing  underneath  the  golden  scales  — 
the  man  himself.  It  was  in  moments  of  doubt  like  these 
that  he  questioned  if  any  net  was  worth  that;  it  was  his 
old  dislike  of  being  cheated,  the  appraising  instinct  which 
had  made  his  father  the  king  of  Barley  Buns.  He  ques 
tioned,  and  as  he  questioned  he  remembered.  He  was  filled 
with  the  held  impressions  of  things  inconsequent  and  inti 
mate,  a  face  which  in  the  dimness  gave  a  mask-like  illusion  of 
empty  eye  sockets  —  a  mouth  cut  from  hard  coral  —  mo 
ments  of  a  kind  of  ultimate  contentment  and  moments, 
whole  periods,  of  a  light  excitement.  He  had  had  the 
dream  and  the  reality  all  in  one ;  the  goddess  had  reached 
down  into  the  hidden  depths  and  brought  forth  the  brute, 
glorified.  Who  was  he,  to  question?  He  remembered 
the  little  lights  along  the  foreign  shore. 

Fairish  announced  that  his  cocktail  awaited  a  verdict. 
Jane  was  called  from  the  other  room.  "You've  got  to  try 
it,"  Parrish  told  her,  "whether  you  like  it  or  not  — "  She, 
as  her  mother,  confessed  herself  for  once  willing  to  be  sacri 
ficed  on  the  altar  of  fellowship. 

They  gathered  about  the  centre-table,  with  its  odd  medley 
of  books  and  bottles  and  priceless  treasures,  and  they  held 
their  small  amber-freighted  glasses  well  aloft.  Jane  looked 
at  David  and  her  mother  looked  at  Parrish,  and  a  kind  of 
embarrassment  seemed  to  pass  about  from  one  to  another. 
"Well,"  said  Parrish,  "here's  how." 

IV 

One  of  the  many  things  in  which  the  'Tidewater'  took  a 
just  pride  was  its  thought  for  the  privacy  of  its  guests. 


292  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

There  was  the  big  sun  parlor,  the  big  dining  room,  and  the 
long  piazza ;  but  there  were,  besides  these,  several  smaller 
rooms  adapted  to  quieter  social  intercourse,  and  also,  on  the 
upper  floors,  a  number  of  upstairs  piazzas  or  balconies. 
The  convalescent  could  bask  in  the  warm  sun  with  little 
chance  of  being  disturbed,  friends  could  talk,  and  as  the 
evenings  grew  less  wintry  the  flirtatiously  inclined  could  sit 
and  watch  the  moonlight  on  the  water.  But  April  was  still 
a  bit  early  for  that ;  it  hadn't  yet  occurred  to  people  to  sit 
out  of  doors  in  the  evening,  and  the  hibernating  habit  still 
clung.  Mrs.  Dench  and  Parrish  had  undisturbed  possession 
of  the  very  balcony  which  was  later  most  sought  out. 

Parrish's  mother  had  decided  to  return  to  Hornmouth, 
stopping  on  her  way  through  New  York  for  a  glance  at 
Emily.  She  had  taken  her  departure  that  afternoon,  and 
Parrish  had  seen  her  to  her  train  with  a  regret  tempered  by 
relief.  He  had  answered  gayly  her  Delphic  parting  word 
about  leaving  him  to  work  out  his  own  salvation ;  and  now 
here  he  was,  with  the  sea  below  him  and  the  sky  above  him, 
and  Mrs.  Dench  at  his  side.  It  was  Mrs.  Dench's  idea. 
She  had  brazenly  told  him  that  she  wanted  to  talk  to  him. 
She  had  told  David  to  entertain  Jane  and  Jane  to  entertain 
David,  and  installed  them  each  in  a  corner  of  the  gilded 
sofa.  The  very  brazenness  of  it  had  left  Parrish  a  little 
dazed,  and  all  he  could  say  on  arriving  at  the  balcony,  which 
seemed  her  planned-for  goal,  was  to  repeat  what  had  so 
startled  young  Barlow. 

"My  dear  Grace — " 

"You  think  I'm  vile,  don't  you?  But  I  wanted  to  talk 
to  you,  and  now  that  your  very  charming  family  have  gone, 
I  see  no  reason  why  I  shouldn't." 


LAUS  VENERIS  293 

"It  ought  not  to  have  been  a  question  of  their  going, 
for  they  never  should  have  come." 

"It  was  inopportune  of  them  —  or  rather,  it  was  you  who 
were  inopportune !" 

"I?"  said  Parrish.  "I  wasn't  thinking  of  myself;  I've 
fortunately  nothing  to  conceal  from  them." 

Mrs.  Dench  laughed.  "And  I  have?  Well,  you  never 
can  say  that  I  didn't  play  the  right  part." 

"Did  I  ever?  No  one  knows,  better  than  you,  how  the 
right  part  should  be  played.  I'd  trust  you  to  the  end  of  the 
earth  with  a  new-born  babe." 

"I  think  that's  been  proved  by  the  way  I've  brought  up 
Jane." 

"Oh,  don't  take  too  much  credit  to  yourself  about  Jane. 
Jane  has  a  character  which  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  where  she 
got-" 

"There's  one  thing  about  you,  you  don't  flatter.  Why 
didn't  she  get  it  from  Christopher  Dench?  He  was  a 
saint  —  far  too  much  of  a  saint  for  the  diplomatic  service; 
he  died  young.  But  Jane  won't  die  young;  she  has  in  her 
enough  of  me  to  save  her.  Do  you  know  I  have  a  plan  for 
her  ?  If  I  can  carry  it  through,  it  will  smooth  out  many 
little  difficulties." 

"Tell  me." 

"  It's  to  marry  her  to  David.    What  do  you  think  of  it  ?  " 

"I  think  it's  appalling!" 

"Why  appalling?  She's  horribly  in  love  with  him,  and 
it  would  keep  him  in  the  family  at  the  same  time  that  it  set 
me  —  set  me  — "  Mrs.  Dench  hesitated. 

"Set  you  free?  Why,  she  wouldn't  touch  him  with  a 
ten-foot  pole !  Nor  he  her." 


294  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"You  think  not?" 

"My  dear  woman,  I  know  not.  She  may  be  dying  of  love 
for  him,  but  there's  a  thing  called  decency  which  she  gets 
from  her  father.  You  spoke  once  of  the  responsibilities 
of  motherhood.  You've  met  them,  I'll  admit,  but  you've 
used  them  to  your  own  ends.  In  arranging  so  comfortably 
for  Jane,  and  accidentally  setting  yourself  free  —  though 
as  for  that  I  can't  see  but  that  you're  free  enough  now  — 
what  is  there  that  you  want  to  do  with  your  freedom  ?  " 

"I  won't  point  out  to  you  how  well  this  comes  from  you." 

Parrish  looked  at  her.  "My  vanity's  not  so  colossal  as 
that." 

"It  has  every  cause  — " 

He  faced  the  peculiarity  of  his  position.  "Since  when," 
he  asked,  "have  you  grown  so  beautifully  methodical?" 

"It's  not  I,  it's  you." 

"Perhaps  you're  right.  Do  you  remember  that  astound 
ing  last  week  in  Paris  when  you  suddenly  decided  to  come 
home  and  I  was  foolish  enough  to  think  it  was  for  me? 
When  I  learned  later,  through  my  mother  —  the  poor  lady 
seems  hopelessly  entangled  —  that  it  was  for  David  Barlow, 
that  David  Barlow  was  here,  I  was  very  near  to  damning 
him  and  you  and  the  whole  thing." 

"It  was  for  you." 

"And  David?" 

"David  doesn't  count." 

Parrish  met  this  with  levity.     "I'm  glad  I'm  not  he !" 

"  You  never  would  be.  Tell  me  —  if  you  so  damned  me, 
why  did  you  come  here?" 

"It's  a  certain  dislike  I  have  of  loose  ends.  I  wanted  to 
straighten  things  out  —  know  where  I  stood." 


LAUS  VENERIS  295 

"And  have  you  found  out?" 

"It's  exactly  where  I  stood  before." 

"And  where  was  that?" 

"Why,  nowhere!" 

"And  will  it  always  be  nowhere  ?" 

"Always—" 

"Why?"  said  Mrs.  Bench.  "If  I  do  what  I  say,  marry 
David  to  Jane  — " 

"But  you'll  never  marry  David  to  Jane  —  it's  quite  im 
possible,  and  besides,  I  have  no  wish  to  make  it  impossible 
that  I  marry  her  myself ! "  Parrish  brought  it  out  sharply 
—  almost  officially.  His  manner  savored  of  the  junior 
partner  in  the  firm  of  wholesale  fur  dealers. 

Mrs.  Dench's  scorn  was  splendid.  "If  you  think  she'd 
touch  you  with  a  ten-foot  pole !  " 

"She'd  have  no  reason  not  to." 

"Don't  you  call  Mme.  Rostov  a  reason?" 

"Perhaps  —  but  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath 
with  Jane's  reason  for  not  marrying  David." 

"You  mean  me?"  said  Mrs.  Dench. 

"Yes,  to  be  brutally  frank,  I  mean  you." 

"I  see  —  you  think  the  fact  of  David  Barlow's  having 
been  my  lover  quite  puts  it  out  of  the  question,  his  ever 
being  my  daughter's  husband." 

"Don't  you  think  so?"  said  Parrish;  "because  if  you 
don't,  you're  hopeless !" 

Mrs.  Dench  accepted  it.  "Tell  me,"  she  presently  asked, 
l<  when  was  this  wonderful  plan  of  yours  evolved  ?" 

It  seemed  that  it  had  come  to  him  at  all  definitely  but  a 
very  few  hours  before,  though  his  liking  for  Jane  had  ex 
tended  back  —  it  rather  antedated  his  liking  for  her  mother. 


296  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

And  as  for  this  last  —  they  surely  needn't  go  into  it. 
Their  memory  of  the  astounding  last  week  in  Paris  was  still 
green.  He  hadn't  liked  her,  and  suddenly  he  liked  her 
very  much.  She  had  occupied  his  speculative  thought,  and 
suddenly  the  abstract  occupation  had  turned. 

The  thing  she  had  which  wasn't  beauty ;  the  sort  of  mas 
culine  good-fellowship  which  he  followed  gayly  till  the  door 
shut  behind  him;  the  vastness  of  her  comprehension  only 
equalled  by  the  vastness  of  her  experience  —  the  sum  of 
her  charm  was  like  the  charm  of  a  place  much  loved,  a  great 
city  endless  and  ageless,  the  very  quantity  of  whose  treasure 
appalls  the  spoiler,  weakening  his  capacity  of  plunder. 
There  was  a  sense,  with  Mrs.  Bench,  of  infinite  leisure. 
There  was  no  hurry  into  recklessness ;  recklessness  with  her 
stepped  a  slow  measure  —  so  slow  that  its  true  nature  was 
concealed  —  a  very  different  matter  from  the  light,  mad 
cadence,  like  a  Slavic  dance  trod  lightly,  which  was  Mme. 
Rostov's  rendering  of  the  thing  the  term  implied.  But 
the  more  rapid  motion  was  better  suited  to  the  exigencies 
of  a  mutable  world.  The  other,  bred  of  a  conception  of 
time  borrowed  from  the  immortals,  didn't  always  arrive. 
It  arrived  in  one  sense  —  in  a  high  achievement  of  the  in 
tangible.  There  was  nothing  between  Mrs.  Bench  and 
Ralph  Parrish,  and  yet  there  was  everything.  But  though 
not  of  the  flesh,  that  everything  was  equally  not  of  the 
spirit  —  the  first  circumstance  was  felt  to  be  accidental, 
the  second  went  deeper.  Their  affinity  had  its  being  in 
something  almost  racial  in  its  physical  foundation.  If 
Mrs.  Bench  had  been  ten  years  older  and  had  had  a  son, 
Parrish  would  have  been  the  very  son  expected  of  her. 
And  wasn't  this  relation  exactly  what  he  was  proposing 
—  the  outcome  of  his  plan  for  Jane  ? 


LAUS  VENERIS  297 

She  seemed  to  take  it,  however,  as  more  to  Jane's  ad 
vantage  than  to  her  own.  She  asked  him  what  Jane  had 
done  to  deserve  it. 

"It's  not  what  she's  done  —  it's  what  she  is." 

"She's  young,  she's  strong,  she's  beautiful,  she  has  a  kind 
of  intelligence  and  a  character  which  seems  to  you  in  a 
daughter  of  mine  unexplained,  —  you  see  I  admit  all  her 
qualities,  —  but  I  yet  don't  see  why  you're  not  very  well 
off  as  you  are." 

"I  am  very  well  off.  But  I've  come  to  a  point  when  I 
should  be  better  off  married  to  Jane  —  you  don't  realize 
how  rare  all  her  qualities  are  —  you  don't  appreciate  her !" 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Bench,  "I'm  beginning  to  hate  her. 
She's  come  between  you  and  me.  Before  that  it  was  David, 
and  before  David  it  was  Maurice  de  Clopin  — " 

Parrish  was  aware  of  her  breath  coming  heavily.  He  rose 
to  his  feet.  "Let  me  go  to  her  with  clean  hands  — " 

"You  mean  Jane?" 

"Yes,  I  mean  Jane." 

"Can't  you  ever  forget  that  she's  my  daughter?" 

He  turned  and  stood  facing  her.  "  I  don't  want  to  forget 
it." 

"That's  it,  you  don't  want  to.  Well,  go  to  her  then,  and 
with  hands  as  clean  as  you  please,  but  I  don't  think  she'll 
marry  you.  She  loves  David,  and  David's  hands  — " 

Parrish  made  a  motion  of  arrest.  "Spare  me,  please,  the 
sordid  particulars." 

Mrs.  Dench  met  his  command.  ."There  are  no  sordid 
particulars  about  David's  feeling  for  me.  It's  the  most 
exquisite  thing  I've  ever  seen.  He  gives  me  his  whole  soul 
—  he  gives  me  himself  — " 


298  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

There  was  a  vague  note  of  laughter  from  Fairish. 

"Yes,  you  can't  understand.  You  think  that  because 
you  have  what  you  call  clean  hands,  your  feeling  for  me  is  the 
most  exquisite  thing  I've  ever  seen." 

"I  assure  you,  you  mistake  me  !" 

"Not  as  much  as  you  imagine.  You  think  that  you've 
reached  the  very  pinnacle  of  virtue,  while  really  it's  not 
virtue  that  you  have  to  thank,  but  your  sense  of  what  is 
convenable.  If  I  were  dyed  and  painted  —  if  I  were  in 
the  picture  .  .  .  But  I'm  not;  my  hair  shows  the  gray,  and 
I'm  the  mother  of  the  young  woman  whom  you  greatly 
admire.  Does  it  strike  you  you're  taking  a  tremendous 
risk  ?  If  you  can't  overlook  her  being  my  daughter,  how 
can  you  overlook  my  being  her  mother?  It's  surely  not 
in  her  favor — " 

Parrish  stared  amazedly.  The  responsibilities  of  mother 
hood.  The  phrase  ran  in  his  head.  If  these  were  they,  his 
impulse  was  to  put  Jane  forever  out  of  their  reach  —  to 
take  her  away,  at  once,  to-morrow,  to  marry  her,  whether 
she  would  or  no.  But  she  would.  He  staked  his  faith  on 
her  ability  to  do  the  right  thing,  and  it  wouldn't  be  the  right 
thing  for  her  to  marry  David  Barlow.  This  was  a  way  out ; 
she  must  see  it.  He  staked  his  faith,  also,  on  her  ultimate 
satisfaction  with  her  bargain,  and  felt  himself  not  unduly 
vain. 

He  had  lost  the  thread  of  his  companion's  discourse. 
"I'm  much  more  complimentary  about  Jane,"  he  found  her 
saying,  "than  she  is  about  me.  It's  a  thorn  in  her  flesh 
that  circumstances  force  her  to  live  with  me.  She  doesn't 
appreciate  what  I've  done  for  her." 

"You  take  her  into  your  confidence?" 


LAUS  VENERIS  299 

"She's  not  a  fool!" 

"I  suppose,  when  Jane  is  married,  you'll  return  to  Europe. 
You  came  over,  you  know,  especially  with  that  end  in  view, 
and,  having  accomplished  your  purpose  — " 

She  who  was  past-master  of  the  tortuous  became  suddenly 
direct.  "Why  don't  you  marry  me  instead  of  Jane?" 

Parrish  vainly  searched  for  words  that  would  not  come. 

"Why  not?  Tell  me  —  why  not?  I'm  a  widow,  and 
there's  no  law,  is  there,  against  marrying  widows?" 

Parrish  shook  himself  from  his  dumbness.  "You're 
upset  —  you're  not  yourself  —  you  don't  know  what  you  're 
saying." 

"I  know  quite  well.  I'm  endeavoring  to  satisfy  your 
sense  of  what  is  convenable.  I'd  do  for  you  what  I 
wouldn't  do  for  any  one  living.  And  don't  for  an  instant 
suppose  that  I  don't  know  what  a  fool  I  am !  Now  I'm 
above  all  laws  —  I'm  free  to  come  and  to  go,  the  responsi 
bilities  of  motherhood  are  the  only  ones  I  have,  and  I  can 
see  you  think  that  even  those  don't  weigh  me  too  heavily. 
People  say  that  one  can't  be  above  all  laws,  that  one  pays 
for  one's  sins  a  hundred  fold.  I'm  afraid  I  don't  quite 
know  what  people  mean.  I've  never  paid.  Perhaps  I'm 
cleverer  than  other  people;  perhaps  I'm  luckier;  perhaps  I'm 
merely  not  the  same.  But  that's  all  over  now.  My  luck 
must  have  turned,  and  as  for  my  cleverness  —  why,  I  tell 
you  I  know  what  a  fool  I  am !  I'm  forty-four,  and  I've 
never  had  anything  but  a  kind  of  reflection  of  other  people's 
passions,  —  never  one  of  my  own,  —  and  now  it's  come  to 
me.  I  think  I  see  you  as  they  have  sometimes  seen  me. 
Perhaps  you  don't  understand.  It's  not  the  kind  of  thing 
one  usually  says,  but  my  reserve,  what  you  euphemistically 


300  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

call  my  modesty,  is  sadly  lacking  —  that,  I  suppose,  is  one 
way  in  which  I've  paid.  I  want  you  —  don't  you  see  ?  — 
and  I  swear  that  to  my  dying  day  I  should  make  you  a 
magnificent  wife." 

Mrs.  Bench's  voice,  low  and  insistent,  ceased.  Parrish 
heard  it  through  a  blur  in  which  when  it  ceased  it  was 
carried  on  by  other  voices  that  rose  to  Mm  in  a  distant  mur 
mur  from  the  piazza  and  from  the  board  walk  below.  Along 
the  walk  lights  were  strung,  a  row  each  side  in  narrowing 
perspective  till  they  seemed  to  join;  and  the  sky  overhead 
was  dotted  with  stars.  A  dog  barked  and  was  silenced. 
There  came  a  snatch  of  laughter  from  the  piazza,  and  a  song 
started  and  stopped.  The  sea  was  calm,  and  Parrish  was 
only  dimly  aware  of  its  swishing  beat.  His  brain  was  con 
fused  as  by  fear,  and  what  there  was  left  clear  was  focussed 
on  the  swathed,  seated  figure  before  him.  He  saw  Mrs. 
Dench  in  all  her  dignity  sharply  silhouetted  against  the 
doorway  which  led  into  the  lighted  corridor.  He  tried  to 
answer  her,  but  instead  of  an  answer  his  words  formed  an 
interrogation. 

"What  have  I  done?'" 

"As  you  said  of  Jane,  it's  not  what  you've  done,  but  what 
you  are." 

"It's  extraordinary  — " 

"What  you  are?" 

"Lord,  no!" 

"You  won't  have  me?"  said  Mrs.  Dench,  and  suddenly 
laughed  with  the  humor  of  it. 

But  Parrish  was  deadly  grave.  "I  won't  have  you  —  I 
can't  —  it's  Jane  — " 

"I've  told  you  that  I  hate  Jane." 


LAUS  VENERIS  301 

"I  wish  to  God  you  hated  me,"  said  Parrish;  and  then,  as 
his  horror  gripped  him  —  "You're  the  most  abominable 
woman  I've  ever  seen  !" 

"Oh,  my  dear,  be  careful  what  you  say  —  it's  too  beauti 
ful  a  night  —  " 

His  disgust  of  her  mounted  to  numbness,  and  it  was  still 
numbly  that  he  bent  down  till  the  two  wide  mouths  met. 
She  spoke  to  him  through  his  kisses,  a  broken  inarticulate 
speech  picked  from  the  love  language  of  many  tongues  — 
"Cheri  —  caro  mio  —  my  own  dear  love — "  And  with 
her  strong  arms  about  him  she  drew  him  close,  and  he  felt 
the  magnificent  beat  of  her  heart  against  his  own.  He 
straightened  and  stood ;  his  hour  had  come,  and  he  brought 
to  its  facing  all  his  new  confidence. 

"  If  it's  what  I  am  you  love  me  for,  let  me  tell  you  that 
what  I  am  is  utterly  vile.  I'm  on  my  way  to  Jane  —  good 
night." 

Mrs.  Dench  watched  him  as  he  passed  through  into  the 
lighted  corridor. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

WEDDING-CAKE 


THE  apartment  in  the  late  thirties  was  more  than  ever 
like  the  inside  of  a  milliner's  bonnet  box.  The  afternoon 
sun  coming  through  the  gayly  curtained  windows  couldn't 
find  a  single  dingy  corner.  The  little  glass  case  glittered 
and  shone ;  the  brocade  drapery  hung  from  the  piano  in  crisp 
folds ;  the  leopard  skin  rug  lay  on  the  floor  in  a  feline  ecstasy 
of  outstretched  paws.  There  were  flowers  in  two  great  blue 
bowls,  yellow  jonquils  and  tulips  that  seemed  to  catch  and 
hold  the  light  which  was  further  reflected  by  the  white 
apron  of  the  maid  who  was  setting  the  tea-table. 

It  was  good  to  be  back  in  New  York;  the  cheerful  rattle 
of  cups  and  silver  testified  to  its  goodness.  Ocean  City, 
in  spite  of  its  name,  was  not  really  a  city ;  it  was  all  very  well 
for  a  time,  but  after  that  time  it  palled.  In  New  York  one 
had  friends  and  diversions;  one's  horizon  was  not  bounded 
by  the  attentions  of  bell-boys  and  porters.  The  beruffled 
little  maid  had  a  very  superior  young  man,  a  young  French 
man  whose  position  in  a  fashionable  hair-dressing  establish 
ment  was  of  the  highest.  He  spoiled  her  for  baser  metal. 
And  then,  in  New  York,  there  were  the  diversions  provided 
by  Miss  Stedman  —  the  people  who  dropped  in  at  tea-time 
with  talk  well  worth  hearing,  and  the  little  dinners  that  it 

302 


WEDDING-CAKE  303 

was  a  pleasure  to  serve.  In  a  place  all  one's  own  the  drama 
of  life  was  more  neatly  constructed  than  was  possible  in 
that  which  was  desecrated  by  the  trampling  feet  of  thou 
sands.  The  apartment  in  the  late  thirties  was  the  beruffled 
maid's  ideal  of  a  home;  its  nervous  straining  in  the  wake  of 
beauty  seemed  to  her  the  apotheosis  of  elegance  and  ease. 
It  was  in  such  a  nest  that  her  mind's  eye  pictured  herself 
and  the  hair-dresser  —  on  the  ground  floor,  perhaps,  that 
would  be  more  convenient  for  business,  and  with  the  big 
windows  offering  a  background  for  much  gilded  lettering. 
Here  would  be  the  table  for  manicuring  —  her  own  especial 
province  —  and  here  the  curtained  space  for  the  deeper 
mysteries  of  the  hair.  The  little  glass  case  enlarged  itself 
in  her  productive  fancy  to  a  case  displaying  creams  and 
powders,  a  spangled  ornament  or  so,  and  a  false  curl. 

But  this  was  the  merest  dream.  It  took  money  to  marry 
and  set  up  in  business  for  one's  self.  It  would  mean  years  of 
saving,  and  saving  was  a  torture  to  the  flesh  when  one  loved 
ease.  It  was  strange  Miss  Stedman  did  not  marry.  Mr. 
Parrish  had  treated  her  badly,  to  be  so  attentive  and  then 
suddenly  to  cease  his  attentions.  He  was  in  town  at  the 
very  moment,  yet  he  never  came  there  now.  She  remem 
bered  him  so  well  as  he  used  to  come,  such  a  splendid 
figure  of  a  man;  she  remembered  the  set  of  his  collar  and 
the  hang  of  his  coat.  She  guessed  from  something  her 
mistress  had  let  drop  that  he  was  paying  his  court  to  the 
tall  young  lady  who  had  been  at  Ocean  City,  Miss  Bench  — 
it  was  she  who  was  coming  to  tea  —  he  might  do  worse, 
though  her  beauty  was  rather  of  the  English  type.  And 
Miss  Stedman  accepted  the  situation  with  the  most  sur 
prising  calm. 


304  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

All  day  she  wrote  at  the  big  table  by  the  window,  and  all 
day  the  blank  yellow  pads  grew  less  blank.  No  Persian 
weaver  sitting  cross-legged  before  a  loom  could  be  more 
faithful  to  his  task.  She  wove  her  fabric  close  and  fine  with 
the  strong,  fine  thread  of  her  genius  passing  and  repassing 
along  the  loom  of  her  riper  maturity.  "Mrs.  Dallowfield" 
awoke  under  the  new  touch  as  though  blown  upon  by  the 
breath  of  life.  It  seemed  as  if  all  of  Emily  Stedman's 
foiled  desire  for  it  went  to  her  making ;  the  memories,  the 
visions,  the  little  ghosts  that  clustered  about  the  desecrated 
grave  —  "  Mrs.  Dallowfield  "  was  like  a  rolling  snowball  gath 
ering  them  all.  And  Emily  was  at  once  her  servant  and 
her  master,  driver  and  driven.  Sometimes  she  felt  herself 
pushed  forward  by  a  force  which  seemed  other  than  her 
own,  and  again  it  was  by  her  own  sheer  effort  of  will  that 
she  wrote  "Mrs.  Dallowfield."  She  would  sit  there,  day 
after  day,  at  the  big  table  by  the  window,  weaving  her 
fabric  and  herself  being  woven  into  it.  She  wove  with  the 
thread  of  her  genius,  and  the  genius  was  herself  and  the 
loom  was  herself  and  "Mrs.  Dallowfield"  was  herself.  She 
defied  all  known  physical  laws  and  lifted  herself  by  her  own 
boot  straps,  Dr.  Jeffries  to  the  contrary. 

April  had  stretched  to  May,  and  now  June  was  near.  She 
wondered  what  the  summer  would  bring  forth.  It  seemed 
that  it  could  have  nothing  left  to  bring,  except  perhaps  a 
more  definite  announcement  of  Ralph  Parrish's  engagement 
to  Jane.  And  spring  might  rob  it  of  this  last  shred,  for  Jane 
was  coming  to  tea,  and  for  what  else  could  she  come  but  to 
tell  her  definitely  the  good  news  ?  Emily  knew  it  already. 
She  had  seen  her  cousin  —  met  him  in  a  car  —  and  he  had 
been  as  full  of  it  as  an  egg  of  meat ;  she  had  a  letter  from  her 


WEDDING-CAKE  305 

Cousin  Laura  in  which  the  space  between  the  lines  was  more 
than  usually  taken  up,  and  one  from  Mrs.  Bench  that 
frankly  intimated  the  approach  of  a  family  relation.  "We 
feel  very  near  to  you,  dear  Miss  Stedman,  and  perhaps  the 
parting  of  our  ways  is  not  for  long. " 

The  thing  she  didn't  understand  was  why  she  was  osten 
sibly  kept  in  the  dark.  In  fact,  her  perplexity  didn't  stop 
there ;  the  news  itself  was  sufficiently  strange.  Why  Parrish 
should  take  Jane,  why  Jane  should  take  Parrish  —  the  clean 
slate  of  her  comprehension  was  crossed  and  recrossed  by 
varicolored  chalk;  she  gave  up  hope  of  making  it  out. 
There  had  been  so  much  talk  —  talk  that  went  for  nothing ; 
and  with  the  expectation,  moment  by  moment,  of  Jane's 
hand  on  the  door-bell,  she  prepared  herself  for  more  talk 
still.  But  she  was  becoming  hardened.  One  definition 
of  a  gentleman  is  a  man  whom  nothing  surprises;  and, 
though  hardly  apt  in  the  case  of  the  softer  sex,  she  felt  that 
if  it  had  been,  she  might  soon  qualify.  It  was  the  result 
of  her  plunge  into  diplomatic  waters.  She  could  smile  at 
it  and  treat  it  lightly,  this  plunge ;  her  own  life  was  unreal 
to  her  in  proportion  as  "Mrs.  Dallowfield"  took  on  life's 
reality,  and  in  proportion  —  also  —  as  her  pain  increased. 
She  met  it  with  a  kind  of  apathy,  the  stupor  of  the  tortured ; 
the  pain  was  there,  but  it  was  some  one  else's  pain,  and  Ralph 
Parrish  was  the  desire  of  some  one  else's  heart. 

Jane  had  telephoned  early  in  the  day  to  make  sure  that 
her  friend  would  be  in.  They  had  left  Ocean  City  —  they 
were  stopping  at  the  'Palazzo'  —  and  could  she  come? 
She  wanted  to  see  her  very  much  indeed. 

The  hour  for  that  consummation  at  last  arrived.  Emily 
rose  to  greet  her.  "Miss  Dench.  This  is  nice !  " 


306  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

She  was  caught  up  in  a  swirl  of  arms  and  ruffles.  "  You 
dear!" 

The  warmth  of  the  reception  was  unlocked  for.  Jane 
was  not  usually  given  to  demonstrativeness,  and  Emily  — 
in  spite  of  herself  —  drew  back  a  little.  It  was  the  merest 
shadow  of  a  movement;  but  it  gave  her  a  broader  view, 
helped  her  to  see  that  Jane's  enthusiasm  was  largely  a 
matter  of  hiding  her  confusion.  The  young  lady  was 
visibly  abashed.  She  seemed  to  find  her  mission  difficult, 
and  it  was  to  get  it  over  with  as  soon  as  possible  that  she 
announced  it  even  before  she  had  found  a  chair.  "I  sup 
pose  you  know  that  Ralph  and  I  are  going  to  be  married. 
I  came  to  tell  you. " 

"I  wasn't  entirely  unprepared." 

"You  couldn't  have  been  —  of  course.  I  suppose  you 
think  it  queer  that  Ralph  isn't  the  one  to  tell  you.  He 
wanted  to  be,  but  I  wouldn't  let  him.  I  wanted  to  tell  you 
all  myself,  I— " 

Emily  cut  her  short.     "I  think  him  a  very  lucky  man." 

"And  don't  you  think  me  a  lucky  girl  ?"  Jane  smiled  at 
her  from  beneath  the  brim  of  the  wide  English  hat  that  was 
a  survival  of  a  past  London  spring. 

"Yes,  you're  lucky;  but,  my  dear,  when  any  one's  as 
beautiful  as  you  are,  it's  not  a  question  of  luck.  You  simply 
crook  your  finger  and  it's  done  !" 

"Oh,  but  it  wasn't  like  that.  I'd  known  Ralph  for 
years  before  he  even  thought  of  it.  In  fact,  we  neither  of 
us  rushed  in.  I've  been  taking  all  this  month  fully  to  make 
up  my  mind." 

"You've  made  it  up  now?" 

"Oh,  quite !    I  think  it's  the  very  best  thing  I  can  do." 


WEDDING-CAKE  307 

Her  hostess  laughed.  "Why,  you're  head  over  heels  in 
love  with  him." 

"No,"  said  Jane,  strangely,  "really  I'm  not.  But  I  have 
a  dreadful  sense  that  I  some  day  may  be." 

"Why  dreadful?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  Don't  you  think  it  dreadful?  To 
be  so  persuadable  — " 

Emily  gave  her  tea.  She  admired  the  big  silver  kettle, 
and  was  told  it  had  come  from  Ralph. 

"He  gave  it  to  you?" 

"You're  not  jealous?"  Emily  jested. 

"Oh,  I  realize  that  you  and  he  were  terribly  thick;  but 
I'm  not  a  bit  fussy.  You  know  his  mother  has  the  most 
adorable  old  silver  at  Hornmouth.  It's  the  most  adorable 
place,  altogether !  Ralph  and  I  spent  Sunday  there." 

It  awakened  memories.  "I  was  born  and  brought  up  at 
Hornmouth  —  hi  the  little  yellow  house  next  door  to 
theirs." 

"Yes,  I  heard  you  were.  But  I  don't  remember  any 
little  yellow  house;  I  think  it's  been  torn  down  —  quite 
recently.  Mrs.  Parrish  said  something  about  it;  I  can't 
just  remember — " 

"And  where  was  your  mother  while  you  were  at  Horn- 
mouth?" 

"Mother  came  up  from  Ocean  City  when  I  did  on  Friday, 
and  went  straight  to  the  'Palazzo.'  She's  done  most  of 
my  shopping  for  me.  Did  you  know  I  expected  to  be 
married  in  June?  There's  so  much  to  get." 

"And  David  —  where  is  he?"  Emily  had  divined  that 
the  subject  of  David  might  prove  awkward,  and  had  not 
meant  to  broach  it. 


308  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

But  Jane  was  calm.  "David's  in  town  with  his 
people.  He  came  up  on  Friday,  too.  His  father's  one  of 
the  most  charming  men." 

"You've  known  him,  haven't  you,  for  some  time?" 

"As  long  as  I've  known  David;  but  I  haven't  seen  so 
much  of  him.  He  called  on  us  yesterday.  Mother  said  it 
was  curiosity,  but  I  said  it  was  nice." 

Emily  searched  about  for  a  suitable  comment,  and,  find 
ing  none,  was  silent. 

Jane  had  been  leaning  back  as  far  as  her  very  erect  little 
chair  permitted,  her  hands  twined  about  her  crossed  knees, 
her  head  bent  forward.  She  gave  the  effect  of  not  knowing 
quite  where  to  put  herself  and  getting  out  of  the  predica 
ment  with  grace.  She  now  straightened.  Her  whole  tone 
changed.  "Do  you  remember  what  I  once  said  to  you 
about  David?" 

"You  mean  about  how  much  you  liked  him?" 

"Yes.    Well,  it  was  true." 

"I  never  doubted  it!" 

"Not  before  —  no.  But  now  you  might  think  I  hadn't 
meant  it.  It  was  foolish  to  say." 

"But  you  didn't  say  a  great  deal,"  Emily  protested; 
"there  was  nothing  of  any  sort  definite  — " 

Jane  looked  at  her.  "Really?  I  felt  afterwards  as 
if  I'd  said  a  lot." 

"You  spoke  of  his  having  been  through  so  much.  You 
gave  me  to  understand  that  he  was  very  changed." 

"I  gave  you  to  understand  that  I  adored  the  ground  he 
trod  on  !  Well  —  I  did.  But  would  it  seem  horribly  dis 
loyal  if  I  said  that  I  was  beginning  not  to?" 

"As  you're  on  the  point  of  marrying  another  man,  I 


WEDDING-CAKE  309 

think  it  would  seem  horribly  disloyal  if  you  said  anything 
else!" 

"Ah  —  disloyal  to  the  other  man  —  disloyal  to  Ralph! 
It's  he  I  have  to  think  of  now.  But  I  do  think  of  him. 
David  grows  less  distinct.  And  after  Hornmouth  — 
I  mean  the  Sunday  we  spent  there — "  Jane's  brows 
were  troubled  with  a  first  comprehension  of  a  universal 
truth. 

Emily  hazarded  a  conjecture.  "Wasn't  there  some  talk 
about  your  marrying  David?" 

"  I  believe  there  was.  But  you  don't  know  —  it  wouldn't 
have  been  the  right  thing !  " 

II 

If,  before,  everybody  had  seemed  to  unite  in  not  telling 
Emily  the  good  news,  they  now  displayed  an  equal  unity 
in  the  other  direction.  On  the  heels  of  Jane's  visit  came 
one  long  and  voluble  from  Parrish;  also  one  from  David 
Barlow,  of  which  it  formed  the  chief  topic.  Letters  poured 
in  —  a  hurried  line  from  Mrs.  Dench,  a  triumphant  paean 
of  praise  from  Laura  Parrish,  a  judicial  word  from  Emily's 
old  friend,  Mrs.  Mellish.  The  very  pavements  rang  with 
it,  and  wherever  Emily  went,  it  was  the  sole  thing  suggested 
by  her  presence.  Ralph  Parrish  always  trod  a  path  rather 
marked ;  he  had  a  certain  native  conspicuousness  which  in 
this  hour  of  his  joy  didn't  desert  him.  The  Town  Club 
was  alive  with  interest,  and  the  senior  partner  in  the  firm  of 
wholesale  fur  dealers  facetiously  calculated  the  effect  on 
the  price  of  furs.  Who  was  Miss  Dench  ?  Emily  was  asked  it 
twenty  times  —  the  Denches'  celebrity  was  strictly  indige 
nous  to  Europe  —  and  she  always  pointed  to  Jane  herself 


310  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

as  an  answer  to  that  question.     "Who  is  she?    Why  do 
you  ask?    Look  at  her !  " 

Together  the  young  lovers  seemed  to  complement  and 
add  to  each  other's  beauty.  They  were  the  sort  of  pair 
after  whom  strangers  turn  to  look;  their  arrival  at  any  public 
centre  was  a  signal  for  a  general  craning  of  necks.  It  would 
be  an  ideal  mating  —  a  union  in  which  the  chances  were 
all  for  success  —  health,  brains,  and  beauty,  and  sufficient 
gold  to  pay  the  piper. 

Emily  called  at  the  'Palazzo'  and  found  Jane  and  her 
mother  up  to  their  ears  in  bridal  preparations.  The  wed 
ding  was  to  be  a  quiet  one  —  a  bare  half-dozen  intimates 
—  but  Jane  was  too  orthodox  to  go  to  the  sacrifice  unar- 
rayed.  Emily  was  brought  directly  in  and  space  made  for 
her  in  the  midst  of  the  confusion.  She  felt  herself  already 
of  the  family.  A  veil  of  tulle  and  lace  was  exhibited  for 
her  admiration.  She  touched  it  delicately.  "The  veil?" 

"  Indeed  it  is." 

"It's  not  just  what  we  should  have  picked  out,"  said 
Mrs.  Dench,  "but  your  American  prices  are  so  absolutely 
ruinous.  We  had  to  call  a  halt  somewhere  !  I  had  a  piece 
of  Mechlin  which  would  have  been  just  the  thing,  but  in 
the  excitement  it  seems  to  have  taken  wings.  However, 
I  should  never  suggest  that  the  chambermaid  at  Ocean  City 
knows  — " 

Jane  brought  forth  a  jewelled  ornament,  pearls  and  sap 
phires  set  in  silver.  It  was  her  future  mother-in-law's  gift, 
and  had  belonged  to  generations  of  Parrishes.  Mrs.  Dench 
vouchsafed  that  she  would  wear  it  to  the  altar,  fastened 
in  her  veil  —  so. 

Emily  applauded.     "She'll  be  a  vision !" 


WEDDING-CAKE  311 

Jane  was  modest.  "Hardly  that.  And  I'm  going  to 
such  a  smart  tailor  for  my  suit.  It's  that  new,  thin  serge — " 

"For  the  price,"  said  her  mother,  "it  should  be  cloth  of 
gold.  Upon  my  word,  I  never  saw  anything  like  your 
prices.  Living  on  the  other  side,  one  doesn't  realize  it. 
Now  over  there  — "  An  intimate  garment  was  held  up 
for  view,  and  there  followed  an  elaborate  comparison. 
"What  do  you  do?  Mrs.  Parrish  says  she  has  her  things 
made  in  the  house.  That  may  be  possible  at  Hornmouth. 
But  when  there's  the  question  of  time  to  be  dealt  with  — 
You  know  it's  on  the  5th?" 

"You've  decided?" 

"Yes.  You  see  the  steamer  I  preferred  sails  on  the 
6th  and  that  gives  the  young  people  time  to  get  away 
before  me." 

"You're  sailing?    I  didn't  realize — " 

"Yes,  I'm  back  to  my  old  haunts.  The  Duchess  de 
Clopin  has  asked  me  to  spend  the  summer  with  her.  She 
has  the  most  charming  chateau  near  Tours,  and  how  could  I 
refuse?" 

"  You  couldn't !    But  you're  coming  back  ?  " 

"To  visit  Jane?    I  may,  if  she  asks  me  very  prettily." 

"Oh,  mother!" 

Emily  murmured  the  conventional  regrets.  "Your 
friends  will  miss  you." 

"Oh,  they'll  somehow  manage !  Now  that  I  have  Jane 
so  beautifully  provided  for,  there's  really  nothing  to  keep 
me,  and  why  should  I  make  myself  uncomfortable  when 
the  reason  is  taken  away  ?  I  frankly  am  not  sympathetic 
with  my  own  country.  - 1  suppose  it's  that  I've  lived  away 
from  it  so  long." 


312  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"I  adore  it,"  said  Jane. 

"Well,  Jane,  you've  got  it,  haven't  you?  You're  going 
to  stay  here.  Don't  you  think,  Miss  Stedman,  that  Jane 
ought  to  be  a  very  happy  girl?" 

" But  isn't  she?" 

"In  a  sense,  yes.  But  when  she's  with  Ralph,  she'll 
sit  for  hours  and  stare  at  him  as  if  he  were  a  new  specimen 
from  the  Zoo.  We  all  know  he's  a  joy  to  behold,  but  it's 
not  as  a  joy  that  Jane  beholds  him  — " 

"Really,  mother!" 

"No,  not  as  a  joy,  but  rather  as  a  mirror  with  which  she 
looks  into  her  own  inmost  depths.  I'm  sure  I  don't  know 
what  she  sees  there.  She  has  reached  the  introspective 
period,  but  she's  young  —  she'll  recover !  After  the  5th, 
everything  will  be  quite  all  right." 

"It's  quite  all  right  now,  mother,  I  assure  you  it 
is." 

"It's  tremendously  exciting,  anyway." 

The  talk  drifted  on,  and  Emily  asked  about  the  future 
plans  of  Ralph  and  Jane.  Had  they  made  any?  Where 
were  they  going  to  live  ?  For  the  summer  in  a  near  suburb 
where  Ralph  could  come  in  and  out,  and  later  there  was  the 
possibility  of  a  tiny  house  in  the  sixties  near  Lexington 
Avenue.  They  might  be  able  to  secure  it  at  a  sum  not  too 
beyond  them,  and  the  wish  closest  to  Jane's  heart  was  a 
place  she  could  really  call  her  own.  It  was  to  be,  in  part, 
her  contribution  to  the  general  economy.  She  had  a  small 
inheritance  from  her  grandmother,  and  for  years  it  had  been 
rolling  up  for  just  such  a  contingency. 

Emily  left  the  '  Palazzo '  with  a  sense  of  greater  cheer  than 
she  had  had  for  weeks.  She  had  held  in  her  hand  the  wed- 


WEDDING-CAKE  313 

ding-veil,  fingered  and  priced  the  wedding-garments,  talked 
of  houses  and  living.  It  seemed  to  make  compassable  the 
measure  of  her  loss — reduce  it  to  the  level  of  mundane  things. 
She  tried  to  imagine  herself  in  Jane's  place,  and  failed. 
Would  she  be  having  wedding-veils  and  thinking  of  houses  ? 
She  would  be  encircled  by  too  infinite  a  glory.  Or  perhaps 
there  was  no  glory;  perhaps  the  glory  was  all  in  her  own 
mind.  People  married  every  day,  and  wedding-garments 
filled  the  shops.  But  as  for  marriage  —  for  herself  she  had 
never  considered  it.  Could  it  be  that  there  was  a  greater 
glory  when  one  didn't  consider  it  ?  She  felt  herself  on  the 
edge  of  sophistry. 

She  was  walking  home;  the  distance  was  not  too  great, 
and  the  heat  was  as  yet  chiefly  noticeable  for  the  promise 
it  held  out  of  more.  The  avenue  was  gay  with  a  rapid, 
ceaseless  movement,  and  on  either  side  shop-windows 
glittered.  She  looked  at  them  in  passing;  there  were 
jewels,  clothes,  and  furniture,  all  of  a  kind  to  be  classed 
among  the  luxuries,  and  yet  in  the  aggregate  taking  on  a 
dignified  importance.  They  were  the  outward  symbols 
of  prosperity,  the  material  rewards  of  success.  But  among 
them  all  there  was  nothing  quite  to  rival  the  Chinese  rug 
or  the  French  sofa  or  the  porcelain  vase,  and  the  clothes 
were  no  better,  surely,  than  those  she  had  come  from  seeing. 
According  to  that  measure,  Mrs.  Bench's  success  was  match 
for  any.  Emily  pondered.  Her  brain  seemed  to  rejoice  in 
problems. 

in 

The  5th  of  June  dawned  warm  and  clear.  Emily  had  been 
waiting  for  it  through  all  the  long,  dark  hours,  and  from 


314  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

her  thankful  hailing  of  the  light  it  might  have  been  her 
wedding-day  instead  of  Jane's.  She  watched  the  objects 
in  her  room  change  from  formlessness,  and  heard  outside 
her  window  the  first  twitter  of  an  adventurously  soaring 
sparrow.  Her  eyes  ached,  and  as  the  day  grew  brighter 
she  shut  them,  but  sleep  would  not  come.  The  marriage 
was  at  twelve.  That  hour  seemed  very  near.  The  little 
handful  of  well-wishers  were  to  group  themselves  about  the 
altar  steps,  and  after  the  service  they  were  to  follow  on  to  the 
'Palazzo'  and  to  breakfast.  David,  the  Barley  Bun  King 
himself,  an  uncle  of  Jane's  who  had  come  all  the  way  from 
Ohio,  and  two  or  three  intimate  friends  of  Parrish's  —  with 
out  whom,  he  said,  he  would  feel  the  ceremony  incomplete 
—  these  were  the  guests,  other  than  Emily.  These,  with 
Mrs.  Dench,  Mrs.  Parrish,  the  clergyman,  and  the  bridal 
pair,  were  to  constitute  the  entire  company.  Emily  had 
a  new  gown  and  a  hat  all  lace  and  flowers.  Some  one  other 
than  Jane  could  have  wedding-garments.  It  was  early, 
not  yet  six,  but  she  rose  and  went  to  the  wardrobe  which 
contained  them.  Two  hours  later  the  beruffled  maid, 
bringing  in  her  breakfast  tray,  found  her  asleep  with  the 
dress  and  hat  laid  near. 

She  woke  her.     "  You  get  cold,  and  then  you  be  not  able 
to  go  to  see  the  wedding !" 

"Oh,  I  shall  see  that  whatever  happens  !" 
"Mademoiselle  has  lived  in  Paris  for  many  years." 
Emily  missed  the  connecting  thought.     "Yes?  " 
"When  you  sent  me  yesterday  to  find  if  I  can  help  in  any- 
things,  she  talked  French,  so  I  could  never  tell.     She  gave 
me  a  handkerchief  she  bought  in  Paris.     Her  fiance  came 
in,  but  she  send  him  away  —  like  this — "     A  chair  was 


WEDDING-CAKE  315 

graphically  seized  by  its  two  arms  and  pushed.  "She  was 
so  gay. " 

"Well,  why  shouldn't  she  be  gay?" 

But  later,  when  the  magic  hour  of  twelve  arrived  and  she 
walked  up  the  long,  dim  aisle  on  the  arm  of  her  Ohio  uncle, 
Jane  was  not  gay.  Her  friends  waited  for  her  at  the  altar 
steps,  a  little  patch  of  life  and  brightness  in  the  midst  of  the 
empty  church.  There  was  a  moment  like  the  snap  of  a 
string,  and  she  was  among  them,  and  Parrish  stepped  out  to 
meet  her.  Then  the  minister's  voice  broke  the  tenseness. 
The  most  intimate  of  Parrish's  intimate  friends  passed  him 
the  ring.  Emily,  leaning  forward,  saw  the  gleam  of  it  as 
it  found  its  final  resting-place.  She  saw  the  back  of  Par 
rish's  bent  head  —  they  were  kneeling  now  —  and  the  line 
of  his  neck  above  his  collar.  She  heard  the  minister's 
voice  —  "In  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  —  "  What  had  that  to  do  with  it  ?  "The 
Lord  mercifully  with  His  favor  look  upon  you  and  so  fill 
you  with  all  spiritual  benediction  and  grace  that  ye  may 
so  live  together  in  this  life  that  in  the  world  to  come  you 
may  have  life  everlasting." 

It  was  over.  The  plan  was  that  the  wedded  pair  should 
lead  the  way  and  the  others  follow  them.  But  Jane  paused, 
uncertain.  Parrish  held  his  arm  ready  for  hers.  She  still 
waited ;  and  as  she  stood  there,  looking  about  from  one  to 
another  of  her  surrounders,  Emily  noticed  that  her  eyes 
swam  with  tears.  She  suddenly  smiled  —  the  sun  breaking 
through  clouds  —  and  suddenly,  so  quickly  that  half  the 
company  had  to  be  afterwards  told  what  it  was  that  had 
happened,  she  turned  to  David  Barlow,  who  was  standing 
next  her  mother,  and  kissed  him.  Then  she  took  her  hus- 


316  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

band's  proffered  arm  and  led  the  way  down  the  aisle  to 
the  church  door. 

.  David  covered  his  embarrassment  as  best  he  could. 
"Well,  David,"  said  the  elder  Barlow,  "it  seems  that  you're 
the  favored  guest — "  And  one  of  Parrish's  intimate 
friends  professed  to  envy  him.  It  was  hardly  reverent  to 
talk  thus  lightly  with  a  sacred  rite  yet  so  close;  but  the 
bride's  own  aberration  had  cleared  the  path.  The  pressure 
of  surprise  found  relief  in  laughter.  "Jane  was  over 
wrought,"  David  explained  it  to  Emily;  "it  must  be  a 
fearful  strain  on  a  girl.  Think  of  it !"  Emily  thought  of 
it  all  the  way  back  to  the  'Palazzo.' 

There  had  been  a  tangle  of  arrangements  outside  the 
church.  The  bride  and  groom  had  got  away  in  one  carriage; 
Mrs.  Dench  and  Mrs.  Parrish  and  the  two  older  men  had 
taken  another;  Parrish's  friends  had  started  to  walk,  and 
David  and  Emily  had  found  themselves  in  front  of  the 
deserted  church*in  a  plight  which  David  had  solved  by  hail 
ing  a  hansom.  The  hansom  succeeded  in  getting  into 
blocks  that  the  earlier  carriages  had  the  start  of ;  even  the 
pedestrians  outstripped  it;  its  occupants  arrived  upon  an 
already  festive  scene.  Mrs.  Dench  had  done  the  thing  with 
her  accustomed  perfection.  The  hotel  rooms  had  all  the 
illusion  of  the  drawing-room  floor  of  a  private  dwelling. 
Instead  of  the  usual  forced  glitter  of  a  hired  setting,  —  the 
sense  it  conveys  of  being  used  for  purposes  of  jollification 
day  after  day  and  night  after  night,  —  the  scene  of  Jane's 
bridal  feast  produced  the  effect  of  a  place  brought  forth 
into  sudden  gayety  from  a  commonly  shrouding  seclusion. 
Where  one  entered,  flowers  and  a  stand  laden  with  wedding 
presents  were  the  chief  notes  of  decoration;  and  looking 


WEDDING-CAKE  317 

through  the  widely  open  doors,  one's  eye  was  arrested  by  a 
white-clothed  horseshoe  table  daintily  spread. 

Mrs.  Bench's  transforming  touch  was  everywhere.  It 
was  the  art  that  conceals  art,  that  air  of  high  festivity 
and  the  apparent  ease  with  which  it  was  accomplished. 
It  was  in  its  way  as  great  an  achievement  as  "Mrs.  Dallow- 
field."  But  while  for  "Mrs.  Dallowfield  "  the  possibilities  were 
unbounded,  the  possibilities  for  the  more  material  creation 
were  bounded  by  hotel  walls  and  glaring  midday  and  a 
handful  of  ill-assorted  people.  Emily  recognized  the 
genius  of  a  fellow-craftsman.  There  she  was  —  this  fellow- 
craftsman,  —  big,  splendid,  very  much  in  the  ascendant. 
One  would  have  thought  it  her  triumph  instead  of  Jane's. 
It  was  true,  what  Parrish  had  said,  that  no  one  knew  better 
than  she  what  the  right  part  was,  and  now  her  ability  to 
play  it  was  proved  for  all  time. 

Even  Emily,  with  her  very  imperfect  knowledge  of  the 
situation,  felt  that  former  measures  of  Mrs.  Bench  fell  short. 
There  was  Parrish,  a  little  awkward  and  a  little  self-con 
scious,  responding  to  John  Barlow's  toast  in  an  incoherent 
sentence ;  and  the  Ohio  uncle,  with  a  great  air  of  discharging 
a  duty  not  altogether  to  his  taste,  of  upholding  the  honor 
of  his  house  at  a  cost;  and  Mrs.  Parrish,  a  gray  dove  with 
folded  wings;  they  were  gathered  from  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  and  Mrs.  Dench  united  them  in  her  comprehensive 
grasp.  She  held  the  reins,  and  there  was  nothing  for  it 
but  the  pace  which  suited  her  best.  'This  marked  develop 
ment  of  the  social  gift  in  one  who  was  not,  economically 
speaking,  an  addition  to  the  social  body  .  .  .  Emily  was 
off  on  one  of  her  long  journeys  of  interrogation.  She  finally 
arrived  at  Jane's  solution.  Mrs.  Dench  should  have  been 


318  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

a  man.  As  a  man  —  there  again  the  path  of  inquiry 
beckoned. 

The  breakfast  was  faultless.  The  champagne  was  praised 
by  John  Barlow,  who  knew  almost  as  much  about  cham 
pagne  as  he  did  about  Barley  Buns ;  and  the  cake  —  a 
monument  of  cupids  and  lovers'  knots  —  stood  forth  in  all 
the  bravery  of  its  sugary  perfection.  It  was  shameful  to 
mar  it;  but  Jane  did  so,  and  two  of  the  'Palazzo's '  most 
impressive  waiters  passed  about  the  cut  portions.  As 
Emily  took  hers,  she  addressed  her  cousin .  ' '  Your  wedding- 
cake,  Ralph  — " 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Jane,  "it's  my  wedding-cake !" 

Mrs.  Dench  calmed  them.  "Don't  fight,  girls,  it  will  be 
everybody's  wedding-cake  presently." 

The  Ohio  uncle  voiced  his  appreciation  of  the  jest. 

Jane  was  more  communicative  than  the  usual  bride. 
"Now,  do  you  know  what  you  must  all  do?  You  must 
put  a  piece  under  your  pillow  and  dream,  and  the  person 
you  dream  about  will  be  your  fate." 

He  who  had  envied  David  was  warmed  by  the  cham 
pagne.  "Well,  now  I  suppose,  Mrs.  Fairish — "  Jane 
started  —  "I  suppose  that  if  I  dreamt  of  you,  your  hus 
band  wouldn't  like  it,  and,  as  I  should  hate  to  incur  his  dis 
pleasure,  I  think  I  won't  follow  your  suggestion." 

"Your  dreams  won't  bother  me,"  said  Parrish;  "dream 
ahead." 

"You  see,  Mr.  Stokes,  you're  safe!"  Mrs.  Dench  had 
always  the  right  word. 

Mr.  Stokes  refused  to  be  comforted.  "I'm  sure  I  wish 
I  weren't  safe  —  " 

"And  then,  if  I  know  Jane,  you'd  be  wishing  you  were," 


WEDDING-CAKE  319 

Mrs.  Dench  tossed  it  back.  It  was  a  kind  of  ball  with  which 
she  was  not  wholly  unfamiliar. 

"If  you  do  —  "  said  Stokes,  a  trifle  in  the  dark. 

"Jane,  annihilate  him  for  the  doubt." 

"What  doubt,  mother?" 

Parrish  was  on  the  rack. 

The  clergyman,  Emily's  neighbor  and  an  old  friend  of  the 
family,  found  in  the  play  of  tongues  matter  for  felicitation. 
"I'm  quite  overwhelmed,"  he  told  her,  "at  the  spectacle 
of  so  much  happiness.  In  fact,  I  always  am  at  an  occasion 
of  this  sort,  and  with  two  such  magnificent  young  people  — " 

"You  don't  become  hardened?  You  see  happiness  so 
often." 

"Ah  —  it's  one  of  the  compensations  of  my  calling,  the 
happiness  I  see ;  for  think  of  the  sorrow  also.  Yes,  the  joy 
with  the  sorrow;  it's  all  in  the  day's  work." 

Emily  thought  it  a  boon  to  have  a  day's  work  so 
varied. 

"Indeed,  yes,  to  feel  that  in  some  way  —  however  small 
—  one  is  of  help  to  one's  fellow-man  —  to  comfort  him  in 
his  sorrow,  assist  him  in  his  joy  —  " 

Jane  slipped  away  to  change  her  things,  — Parrish  also, — 
and  Mrs.  Dench  excused  herself  to  have  a  last  word  with 
her  daughter.  The  irrepressible  Stokes  followed  Parrish 
close.  "We  must  keep  an  eye  —  we  mustn't  let  him 
get  away — " 

"Do  you  think  it  likely?" 

"You  can't  tell.  There's  a  machine  waiting  at  the  pri 
vate  entrance,  and  we'll  meet  them  there.  If  they  should 
try  to  escape  us  —  but  they  won't."  He  was  off  on  his 
self-appointed  guard. 


320  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"  Where  are  they  going  ?  "  Emily  asked  Mrs.  Fairish ;  "  but 
I  suppose  it's  a  secret." 

.  "Oh,  it's  no  secret!  I've  lent  them  Hornmouth.  But 
they  won't  go  anywhere  for  long,  as  Ralph  can't  get  off. 
He  spent  so  much  time  abroad  in  the  winter  that  he's 
rather  tied." 

"Of  course,  he  must  be." 

The  clergyman  had  duties  elsewhere,  and  John  Barlow 
had  an  appointment  at  his  office.  The  hour  surprised  them, 
and  they  fled.  One  of  Parrish's  intimate  friends  had  sworn 
he'd  be  down  town,  but  he  simply  wasn't  going  to  keep  his 
word.  He  was  going  to  see  the  thing  through  at  whatever 
sacrifice ;  it  was  not  for  nothing  that  he  had  been  all  day 
cherishing  to  his  bosom  a  bag  of  rice.  Mrs.  Parrish  begged 
him  not  to  be  too  wild  in  his  demonstrations.  He  must 
remember  that  the  private  entrance  of  the  'Palazzo'  was 
private  only  by  comparison. 

"Oh,  I  shan't  make  a  row!  Surely  a  handful  of  rice 
won't  matter.  I  should  expect  Ralph  to  do  the  same  for 
me." 

They  were  sitting  about  the  rather  dismantled  table,  and 
it  was  suggested  that  they  wend  their  way  downwards. 
They  were  only  waiting  for  Mrs.  Dench.  She  appeared 
while  they  were  discussing  it.  "Jane's  ready,  and  Ralph 
and  Mr.  Stokes  are  bidding  each  other  a  tender  farewell. 
Stokes  has  ordered  a  large  quantity  of  Scotch  and  soda 
that  Ralph  won't  touch  —  he  says  it  would  be  a  mistake 
after  the  champagne  —  they're  arguing  it  out  between 
them,  and  it's  going  on  in  my  room,  which  I  was  good 
enough  to  lend  Ralph  to  dress  in.  Jane's  gone  in  to  see 
what  she  can  do." 


WEDDING-CAKE  321 

The  Ohio  uncle  had  his  first  familiar  glimpse  of  society 
in  the  great  metropolis. 

They  adjourned  to  the  private  entrance.  Emily  felt  as 
though  they  had  been  moving  from  one  place  to  another 
since  early  dawn.  It  was  unbelievable  that  this  at  last  was 
their  final  destination.  She  was  Alice  at  a  March  Hare's 
tea-party,  and  her  adventures  couldn't  have  ended.  David 
Barlow  was  near  her,  and  she  was  on  the  point  of  asking  him 
what  came  next,  but  was  saved  from  the  absurdity  by  the 
rather  precipitate  arrival  of  the  bride  and  groom.  They 
darted  out  from  a  hitherto  inconspicuous  elevator.  "  We've 
left  Stokes  locked  in  your  room!  "  Ralph  hurled  it  at 
his  mother-in-law,  and  she  skilfully  caught  in  her  hand  the 
key  that  accompanied  it. 

Jane  paused  at  the  topmost  step,  her  skirts  gathered 
about  her  as  though  for  flight,  her  laughing  head  thrown 
back.  Then,  with  one  straight,  sweeping  motion,  she  was 
down  the  steps  and  into  the  automobile.  Ralph  Parrish 
followed,  and  Emily  caught  it  full  —  the  peace  in  her  eyes 
as  she  made  room  for  him  beside  her. 


CHAPTER  XV 

LA  BELLE  FRANCE 


AFTER  eight  days  of  an  unbroken  blue  horizon,  punc 
tuated  on  the  eighth  by  the  cliffs  of  Devon  and  Cornwall, 
eight  days  of  throbbing  screws  and  rushing  waters,  to  wake 
into  a  quiet  and  a  silence  and  to  see  framed  round  in  the 
port-hole  the  slated  roofs  and  gray  masonry  of  Boulogne  — 
it  ranks  with  the  remembered  moments.  Mrs.  Dench, 
usually  not  sensitive  to  the  purely  external  impression,  re 
membered  this  one  always.  But  to  her  it  was  more  than 
external,  it  was  very  deeply  personal;  it  marked  for  her 
a  new  stage,  a  home-coming  that  was  strangely  lacking  in 
the  elements  of  home-coming.  Boulogne  was  France  and 
France  was  home,  or  if  it  wasn't,  what  was?  Surely  not 
America.  She  realized  suddenly  that  all  she  cared  about 
was  there :  Jane  —  she  did  care  about  Jane,  without  Jane 
she  missed  the  responsibilities  of  motherhood  —  and  David, 
to  whose  presence  she  had  become  accustomed,  and  Ralph 
Parrish.  Besides  these,  who  was  there  in  the  whole  world 
at  the  news  of  whose  violent  demise  she  would  turn  a  hair  ? 

In  her  own  way  she  had  always  cared  for  Jane ;  though 
the  time  was  not  far  distant  when  people,  other  than  Jane, 
had  been  less  definitely  discriminated.  People  were  very 
much  alike;  they  were  divided,  for  ease  of  handling,  into 

322 


LA  BELLE  FKANCE  323 

types  and  races  and  classes,  but  their  common  humanity 
was  stronger  than  any  mere  variation  of  it.  Stronger,  in 
Mrs.  Dench's  sight,  and  more  important.  Though  by 
nature  and  by  circumstance  a  citizen  of  the  world,  she  had 
chosen  France  as  her  headquarters,  because  in  France  this 
common  humanity  was  the  thing  most  emphasized-  It 
seemed  strange  to  her  that  the  only  people  for  whom  she 
cared  should  none  of  them  be  of  that  country.  It  gave  her 
a  sense  of  expatriation  with  which  as  a  citizen  of  the  world 
she  was  unfamiliar.  She  had  no  deeper  interest  in  the 
country  lying  back  of  the  gray  masonry  and  the  slated 
roofs  than  had  the  personally  conducted  party  of  tourists 
who  jostled  her  on  the  main  deck;  less  deep,  perhaps, 
because  for  her  it  lacked  a  saving  novelty.  She  knew  it 
so  well  —  its  conformation  external  and  internal,  the  whole 
structure  of  its  social  fabric,  the  satyr's  leer  which  was,  after 
all,  only  an  expression  of  its  common  humanity,  and  was 
seen  at  its  best  and  broadest  in  France's  great  city.  It 
was  her  great  city,  too,  the  city  that  spoke  to  her  and  once 
or  twice  had  sung  to  her  —  she  remembered  that  last  Paris 
week  —  and  had  up  to  now  met  all  her  needs,  spiritually, 
physically,  mentally.  She  was  on  her  way  there  to-day. 
Paris  was  the  last  stage  in  her  journey  to  Tours. 

She  arrived  at  the  'Gare  du  Nord'  at  high  noon  and  drove 
straight  to  her  hotel,  where  the  mademoiselle  at  the  desk 
fairly  drowned  her  in  a  greeting  flood  and  the  proprietor 
himself  came  forward  with  gestures  of  welcome.  They 
had  reserved  for  her  in  response  to  her  cable  the  very  suite 
which  she  and  her  daughter  had  so  often  occupied  together 
during  their  briefer  Paris  sojourns.  They  hoped  she  would 
be  content.  The  little  salon  had  red  velvet  curtains  that 


324  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

might  have  graced  a  Napoleonic  palace  and  only  half 
screened  the  unexampled  view  of  the  street ;  and  the  bed 
room,  looking  as  it  did  only  upon  the  court,  made  up  for  this 
carelessness  by  a  rather  gorgeous  pair  of  brass  bedsteads. 
There  was  a  feeling  of  home-coming;  the  lady  from  Ohio 
couldn't  deny  the  comfort  of  it.  She  wondered  if  on  the 
morrow  she  would  like  Tours  as  well.  She  wondered,  for 
one  breathless,  sinking  moment,  why  she  was  going  there. 
But  if  Tours  was  the  price  of  escaping  from  the  spectacle 
of  Parrish's  happiness,  it  could  not  prove  too  high. 

Brushed  and  fed,  she  had  business  at  her  banker's  and 
her  dressmaker's.  It  led  her  through  wide  streets,  filled 
to  the  edges  with  the  teeming  life  of  a  Latin  race,  a  life 
grimacing  and  struggling  and  giving  the  effect  of  surviving 
against  odds.  It  was  only  with  the  aid  of  extended  palms 
that  it  accomplished  it  even  then.  The  beggar,  the  shop 
keeper,  the  cocotte  —  the  predatory  instinct  was  strong  in 
them  all ;  it  balanced  their  humanity,  and  it  was  their  hu 
manity  —  or  knowledge  of  it  —  which  made  their  preda- 
tions  practicable.  Mrs.  Dench  felt  herself  familiarly  one 
of  them,  and  was  unmindful  of  the  smirch.  In  Paris  she 
and  they  were  in  the  majority ;  they  were  of  the  ruling  class, 
and  she  was  buoyed  by  the  ascendancy.  It  put  her  in  the 
right  and  Ralph  Parrish  and  Jane  in  the  wrong.  Made  bold 
by  her  support,  she  rated  the  newly  married  pair  with  the 
Ohio  uncle,  who  had  come  to  his  niece's  wedding,  so  he 
had  told  her  mother,  amid  the  protestations  of  his  family 
—  an  intimation  sufficiently  trying.  But  now  she  breathed 
a  freer,  more  friendly  air.  Steeped  in  it,  she  drove  along 
the  arcaded  'rue  de  Rivoli.'  She  saw  through  iron  palings 
the  sunny  slopes  of  the  Tuileries  Gardens  and  fancied  them 


LA  BELLE  FRANCE  325 

peopled  by  past  generations  of  French  —  lovers,  chiefly, 
strolling  arm  in  arm  and  hand  in  hand,  and  sitting  and 
kneeling  and  lounging  on  the  soft,  smooth  grass.  At  this 
vision  she  was  very  much  aware  of  the  presence  of  her  un 
accepted  passion.  But  her  pity  for  herself  was  almost 
equalled  by  her  pity  for  Ralph  Parrish.  He  had  missed  his 
opportunity.  He  must  now  be  moving  into  that  little 
suburban  house;  she  pictured  it  filled  with  half-unpacked 
trunks,  and  Jane  standing  in  the  midst  young  and  helpless 
—  and  beautiful  —  yes,  very  beautiful.  The  mother  shut 
her  eyes  to  shut  out  her  imagination  of  Jane's  beauty. 

Jane  had  been  beautiful  even  in  the  days  when  she  used 
to  come  awkwardly  forward  in  response  to  her  mother's 
request  and  allow  herself  to  be  made  known  to  her  mother's 
friends.  She  would  be  home  from  the  convent  for  a  holi 
day,  and  she  kept  her  convent  shyness;  her  mother's  friends 
filled  her  with  terror.  Those  were  the  days  when  Ralph 
Parrish  could  hardly  have  been  called  one  of  them ;  he  was 
merely  a  young  man  there  in  the  wake  of  Mme.  Rostov, 
very  handsome  and  very  American.  Mrs.  Dench  had 
admired  him  as  she  admired  certain  classic  representations 
in  the  Louvre.  She  had  been  quite  aware  that  he  didn't 
like  her ;  but  she  was  accustomed  to  people's  not  liking  her. 
They  either  did  or  didn't  —  and  employed  no  half-measures. 

But  the  time  came  when  our  young  man  went  over  to  the 
opposite  camp.  Again  Mrs.  Dench  remembered  that  last 
week  in  Paris :  the  first  day  of  it,  dawning  as  other  days  and 
giving  no  sign  that  a  last  week  was  on  the  threshold,  and 
stretching  on  into  afternoon  with  a  barely  discernible 
emanation  of  its  potentialities.  Jane  had  been  away, 
spending  a  day  and  night  with  an  old  lady  —  her  god- 


326  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

mother,  who  had  moved  from  Vienna  to  Auteuil  —  and  as 
a  consequence  there  was  rather  more  talk  than  usual  in  the 
little  gilded  salon.  Mme.  Rostov  always  frankly  said  that 
she  never  could  do  herself  justice  in  the  presence  of  Jane, 
and  now  —  in  her  absence  —  she  did  herself  more  than  that. 
Speech  had  seemed  blown  from  her  rouged  little  mouth,  light 
like  froth ;  she  soared  to  winged  heights  of  jest  and  fluttered 
and  pirouetted,  winning  for  her  pains  the  applause  of 
M.  Gadillon.  It  was  Mme.  Rostov's  hour.  Even  her  hus 
band  admitted  it,  and  the  De  Clopins  were  entranced  afresh. 
Parrish  was  alone  left  cold.  Mrs.  Bench  had  likened  her 
Russian  friend  to  a  hunter  whose  call  brings  to  him  all  the 
game  in  the  forest  except  that  for  which  it  is  meant.  In 
fact,  she  had  been  so  occupied  with  this  analogy  —  she 
had  little  sympathy  with  the  vanquished,  the  least  one 
could  ask  of  them  was  a  graceful  and  quiet  retreat  —  her 
attention  had  been  so  taken  up  with  the  situation  in  ques 
tion,  that  it  was  a  moment  before  she  had  been  aware  that 
Parrish's  attention  was  all  for  her.  He  was  looking  at  her, 
and  her  eyes  inquiringly  met  his.  He  had  answered  still 
silently  and  silently  seen  the  fluttering  departure  of  Mme. 
Rostov  with  her  husband.  M.  Gadillon  followed.  The 
duke  and  duchess  in  leaving  took  with  them  a  charming 
young  Austrian,  the  wife  of  a  cousin  of  the  duke's. 

Parrish  had  walked  back  from  the  door  to  the  table,  and 
Mrs.  Dench  had  watched  him  a  trifle  aghast  as  he  lit  an 
other  cigarette.  "Let's  talk  for  a  while  —  you're  not  out 
for  dinner  —  you  said  you  weren't.  I've  never  felt  that 
I've  really  had  the  chance  to  know  you — "  The  sublime 
impudence  of  it  had  held  her  enthralled  —  also,  as  the  time 
went  on,  the  sublime  impudence  of  his  having  the  chance 


LA  BELLE  FKANCE  327 

• 

and  never  —  in  a  sense  —  fully  taking  it.  There  had  been 
a  waiting  hang  —  an  atmosphere  tense  with  possibility 
—  and  once,  on  the  upper  balcony  of  the  'Tidewater  Hotel,' 
he  had  so  far  yielded  to  his  impulses  as  to  kiss  her.  The 
thing  was  unique  in  her  wide  experience.  She  wondered  if 
it  was  because  she  herself  had  cared  so  much. 

That  had  been  in  February  —  it  now  was  June.  Her 
life  had  gone  quickly  during  the  past  months;  the  steady 
swing  of  it  had  left  her  breathless.  It  left  her,  however, 
very  much  where  she  had  been  before.  Except  for  her 
daughter's  marriage,  her  situation  was  unchanged.  There 
was  Tours  on  the  morrow,  and  in  any  case  there  would  have 
been  Tours,  the  duchess  probably  extending  her  hospitality 
to  include  Jane.  The  problem  of  Jane  would  never  again 
arise.  But  Jane  had  been  useful  as  well  as  beautiful; 
she  had  given  to  Mrs.  Bench's  position  a  certain  solidity, 
had  done  for  her  in  that  direction  almost  as  much  as  the 
duchess  herself.  Jane's  mother  was  not  ungrateful. 

Her  cab  had  turned  into  the  'rue  des  Pyramides'  and  at 
the  point  where  that  thoroughfare  meets  the  'avenue  de 
1' Opera'  it  narrowly  escaped  collision  with  a  vehicle  which 
was  moving  rapidly  down  the  avenue.  The  cabman 
wheeled  his  horse  parallel  with  the  other;  and  Mrs.  Dench, 
shaken  out  of  her  abstraction  by  the  suddenness  of  the 
movement,  found  herself  side  by  side  with  the  solitary  oc 
cupant  of  the  more  elaborate  turnout.  As  the  smoothness 
of  his  own  course  had  been  undisturbed,  it  took  a  moment 
more  to  rouse  him.  She  leaned  forward  and  put  out  her 
hand  in  greeting,  "  Maurice,  mon  cher  ami !  " 

The  duke  saw  her,  and  from  his  answer  it  seemed  that  he 
thought  his  good  fortune  not  possible. 


328  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

II 

The  duchess  welcomed  Mrs.  Bench  to  Tours  with  a  grace 
and  a  cordiality  which  were  only  equalled  by  that  lady's 
response.  Never  before  had  the  friendship  between  the 
two  been  so  close.  If  the  duchess  was  conscious  in  herself 
of  certain  indecisions,  certain  lacks,  which  the  presence  of  the 
other  tended  to  offset,  Mrs.  Dench  in  turn  saw  certain  de 
fects  in  her  own  make-up,  and  her  hostess  was  the  very 
woman  to  redeem  them.  This  system  of  mutual  benefit 
was  as  workable  a  foundation  for  a  friendship  as  any;  it 
had  supported  this  one  for  many  years  and  was  strengthened 
by  the  break  of  months.  The  duchess  lost  and  forgot  her 
self  in  admiration  of  the  robuster  personality,  and  Mrs. 
Bench's  more  material  sense  of  gain  flourished  apace.  A 
warm  welcome  at  the  'Chateau  Bouce-AmeTe'  was  doubly 
precious  to  a  lone,  daughterless  widow. 

The  duke,  who  shared  his  wife's  admiration  and  had  been 
known  occasionally  to  lose  and  forget  himself  in  his  own, 
found  this  cemented  friendship  a  mitigated  blessing.  It 
gave  either  woman,  separately,  so  few  moments  for  him. 
And  there  was  little  pleasure  in  sitting  with  them  under 
the  cherry  trees  in  the  walled  garden  in  the  morning  and 
facing  them  in  the  big  barouche  in  the  afternoon.  Pe 
sought  to  console  himself  for  their  separate  neglect  by  long 
walks  with  the  young  Rodrick,  son  and  heir  of  the  Be 
Clopins,  who  was  home  from  his  English  school  on  a  holi 
day.  He  felt  that  in  that  direction  he  had  never  before 
made  the  most  of  his  opportunities;  he  had  never  before 
seriously  considered  himself  as  a  father.  His  daughters  were 
a  meek  little  pair  wholly  surrounded  by  instructors  and 


LA   BELLE   FRANCE  329 

governesses,  and  of  Rodrick  he  had  always  stood  rather  in 
awe.  He  had  not  remembered  that  at  fifteen  one  was  so 
perfectly  master  of  the  situation.  From  his  round  silk  hat 
and  Eton  collar  down  to  his  polished  shoes,  Rodrick  was 
complete  —  a  Frenchman  in  miniature  —  graver  than  most 
Frenchmen,  perhaps,  but  with  a  ready  wit  and  an  accus 
tomed  swing  to  the  light  cane  he  was  rarely  divorced  from. 

The  father  was  surprised  to  find  his  son's  completeness 
not  altogether  external.  He  had  been  informed  that  his 
scholarship  left  much  to  be  desired;  but  he  now  felt  that 
this  was  atoned  by  Rodrick's  exceptional  aptitude  for  pick 
ing  and  retaining  odd  bits  of  information  that  the  more 
conscientious  student  hasn't  the  time  to  acquire.  This 
aptitude,  wholly  French,  and  ripened  on  the  sunny  slopes 
of  an  English  public  school,  had  its  flower  in  a  broad  theo 
retical  sophistication.  It  was  theoretical  —  the  duke  felt 
sure  that  at  fifteen  it  couldn't  be  based  on  a  personal  con 
tact  —  and  it  might  as  well  be  theoretically  right  as  theo 
retically  wrong.  Their  long  walks  bred  longer  talks,  and 
during  the  course  of  these  he  would  endeavor  to  instil  into 
his  son  certain  moral  precepts  which  were  the  ideal,  if  not 
always  the  practice,  of  his  class.  Moderation  —  balance 

—  a  code  that  barred  the  injury  of  others;    honor  with 
women,  as  the  duke  understood  it,   one's  mother  —  sister 

—  wife  —  the  wife  of  a  friend  —  any  woman  whom  there 
was  a  chance  of  ever  making  one's  wife  —  and  for  the  rest 
a  graded  rule  in  which  the  code  barring  injury  to  others 
was  still  to  be  remembered  in  all  its  ramifications :  that  was 
the  text  of  his  sermon,  the  substance  of  his  philosophy. 
His  pulpit  was  a  seat  cut  in  the  stone  wall  which  in  remote, 
wooded  places  bordered  the  grounds  of  '  Douce-Amere.' 


330  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

In  front  a  stream  picked  its  way  among  moss-grown  rocks, 
and  overhead  the  branches  of  the  trees  shut  out  the  sun. 
To  the  duke  —  heated  from  his  walk  —  the  shaded  cool 
ness  was  grateful ;  even  the  young  Rodrick  found  it  kindly, 
and  advantage  was  usually  taken  of  a  mutually  sym 
pathetic  mood. 

The  duke  was  discoursive,  his  son  in  turn  receptive  and 
controversial,  and  the  older  man  had  to  meet  arguments 
and  answer  questions.  He  sometimes  found  himself 
utterly  refuted  and  was  aghast  at  the  wisdom  of  fifteen: 
"  If,  as  you  say,  there  is  a  graded  rule,  it  must  land  one 
finally  among  women  with  whom  there  is  no  honor.  Then 
the  rule  stops,  and  then  what  ?  "  "  Honor  to  one 's  self  —  " 
"Ah  —  you  hadn't  mentioned  it.  But  if  one  should  be 
willing  to  throw  it  to  the  winds  —  "  "  My  son,  there  are 
depths  even  in  the  abyss  — "  But  this  and  similar  fine 
nesses  were  above  fifteen's  refutation,  and  for  answer 
Rodrick  would  flick  the  moss  with  his  cane.  The  thing 
that  really  interested  his  precocious  little  brain  was  also 
the  thing  his  insular  training  had  taught  him  was  none  of 
his  business. 

Women,  collectively  and  theoretically,  he  could  discuss 
forever  without  once  encroaching  upon  the  conventions; 
but  woman,  singly  and  concretely,  the  woman  of  reality 
and  not  of  theory,  her  he  must  not  mention.  Mrs.  Bench 
appealed  to  his  young  imagination;  his  curiosity  played 
about  her,  and,  though  up  to  now  he  had  seen  her  but  rarely, 
he  had  always  remembered  her.  He  had  caught  from  his 
elders  the  trick  of  filing  away  a  picked  portion  of  his  ac 
quaintance  for  future  reference  —  a  portion  which  very 
much  included  Mrs.  Dench  —  and  for  her  the  future  ref- 


LA  BELLE   FRANCE  331 

erence  had  arrived.  Her  position  in  his  family  would  have 
alone  made  her  worthy  of  his  speculation ;  but  she  had  other 
claims  besides.  When  he  was  a  very  small  boy,  it  had  been 
the  habit  of  the  ladies  who  frequented  his  parents'  house 
to  take  him  on  their  knees  and  fondle  him  and  make  much 
of  him.  This  had  always  bored  him,  and  he  had  had  the 
sharpness  to  divine  it  was  not  for  him,  but  for  the  gentle 
men  whom  they  looked  at  the  while  under  drooping  lashes. 
But  Mrs.  Bench,  on  the  contrary,  had  seemed  unaware  of 
his  existence.  The  English  in  him  liked  that,  and  the  youth 
which  despises  pretence. 

She  still  ignored  him,  and  thereby  gave  his  imagination  a 
free  field.  Boyishly  he  wanted  her  to  notice  him.  He 
wanted  the  chance  to  notice  her,  to  see  for  himself  what  it 
was  that  held  her  admirers  enchained,  —  the  fact  couldn't 
be  blinked  that  she  wasn't  young,  —  and  he  never  recognized 
the  predestined  failure  of  the  enterprise.  But  his  discovery 
was  already  made,  had  he  but  known  it,  his  search  rewarded, 
in  the  very  reason  of  his  desire  for  it.  Woman  of  reality 
as  she  undoubtedly  was,  Mrs.  Bench  had  as  a  gift  from  her 
God  the  talent  of  throwing  about  her  a  kind  of  emanation  of 
mystery.  She  performed  this  feat  without  conscious  ef 
fort;  she  had  no  longing  for  the  role  of  femme  incomprise; 
though  her  mystery  was,  after  all,  not  quite  of  that  sort 
—  it  was  nearer  a  species  of  hypnotism  —  a  personal  mag 
netism  compelling  conjecture.  She  was  pitched  loud  in  a 
harmony  all  hers ;  it  had  been  Emily  Stedman  who  had  said 
of  her  that  she  made  the  rest  of  the  world  look  like  a  pho 
tograph  underexposed.  It  remained  for  Rodrick  to  say 
Of  her  —  or  rather  to  think  of  her  —  that  she  made  the 
Buchess  de  Clopin  look  like  a  fool. 


332  OTHER   PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

He  felt  for  his  mother  the  true  Gallic  adoration,  and  it 
was  the  one  thing  he  had  against  Mrs.  Dench,  this  new  as 
pect  of  his  mother.  He  saw  it  with  eyes  prematurely 
acute,  the  same  eyes  with  which  he  saw  the  various  aspects 
of  Mrs.  Dench  herself.  When  she  was  driving  he  rode  by 
her  swiftly  on  horseback,  and  when  she  looked  from  her 
window  in  the  morning,  he  was  engaged  with  his  fencing 
master  on  the  lawn  below.  He  knew  intuitively  that  she 
admired  bodily  skill.  She  had  a  good  deal  of  her  own.  In 
spite  of  her  heaviness,  she  carried  herself  like  a  dancer; 
if  her  movements  were  slow,  they  were  also  rhythmic,  and, 
more  than  anything,  you  felt  her  life  from  head  to  toe.  She 
was  the  inspiration  of  a  fairly  scholarly  poem  which  later 
created  something  of  a  stir  in  the  English  public  school, 
coming  as  it  did  from  the  pen  of  one  whose  scholarship  was 
not  of  the  highest.  It  was  in  Latin  and  dedicated  to  Venus :  — 

"  Filia  mundi,  mater  amoris— " 

The  Latin  master  still  has  a  copy  of  it  in  his  possession. 
The  duke  was  not  so  favored.  But  that  such  a  poem 
existed,  though  he  afterwards  forgot  it,  he  at  one  time 
knew.  He  happened  to  stumble  upon  one  of  the  moments 
of  its  fabrication.  Seeing  a  slit  of  light  under  his  son's  door 
night  after  night  into  the  small  hours,  he  at  last  took  it 
upon  himself  to  assert  his  parent  privilege,  and  entered  to 
find  Rodrick  surrounded  by  dictionaries  and  scrawled  paper. 
There  was  an  almost  guilty  confusion,  and  the  duke  begged 
a  thousand  pardons  for  the  liberty.  He  had  not  realized 
that  his  son  was  occupied  ...  It  was  nothing  —  nothing, 
that  is  to  say,  weighed  in  the  balance  with  the  honor  of  his 
visit, 


LA  BELLE  FRANCE  333 

Thus  entreated,  the  duke  sat  down.  "  Is  it  not  better 
to  confine  your  studies  to  the  day?"  He  always  did  so. 
These  were  not  studies.  No,  what  then?  He  had 
long  admired  the  ode  as  a  poetic  form,  and  regardless  of 
incredulous  eyebrows  he  went  on  to  explain  that  these  were 
experiments;  he  hoped  eventually  to  bring  forth  out  of 
chaos  a  finished  product.  He  gave  his  father :  — 

"  Filia  mundi,  mater  amoris  —  " 

It  was  thought  to  lack  originality.  Another  example 
of  his  muse  was  tried  and  judged :  — 

"  Arnica  maris  et  soror  sideris  —  " 

"Why  don't  you  show  it  to  Mrs.  Bench?" 

He  fancied  the  last  rag  of  his  concealment  torn  away. 
"Why  Mrs.  Dench?"  But  in  the  same  breath  he  recog 
nized  the  arrival  of  his  opportunity.  The  self-imposed 
interdict  was  removed;  he  could  talk;  he  could  probe;  he 
could  discover.  "Why  Mrs.  Dench?" 

"  Because  I  divine  that  she  —  an  extraordinary  woman, 
Rodrick,  believe  me  —  she  is  in  some  way  at  its  source ; 
you  have  felt  and  garnered  the  thing  I  shall  designate,  for 
want  of  a  better  rendering,  as  that  which  you  English  would 
call  her '  aura.' " 

Rodrick  was  bold.    "You've  felt  it  too?" 

"Ah  — how  could  I  not?" 

"As  you  say,  an  extraordinary  woman."  The  gesture 
which  accompanied  this  corroboration  was  so  infinitely 
world-weary  —  a  settling  and  a  stretching,  feet  extended, 
hands  in  pockets,  head  bent  forward  at  the  arbitrary  angle 
of  his  chair  —  that  it  struck  the  duke  as  infinitely  droll. 


334  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

He  laughed,  and  his  laughter  had  the  effect  of  bringing  from 
Rodrick  a  fresh  boldness:  "You  see,  if  you  think  she's 
extraordinary,  knowing  as  you  do  all  the  extraordinary 
circumstances  of  her  life,  and  therefore  understanding  them, 
what  must  I  think  her,  coming  from  the  outside  and  not 
understanding  a  thing?"  The  poem  was  put  by  in  the 
interests  of  actuality;  his  chance  to  talk  of  woman,  singly 
and  concretely,  might  be  long  in  repeating  itself.  He 
momentarily  expected  to  be  pulled  up  for  his  impertinence, 
and  made  the  best  of  his  time.  "You  can't  know,"  he 
told  his  father,  "  the  way  I  feel  about  her." 

"Is  it  necessary  that  I  should?" 

"Ah  —  you  don't  see  what  I  mean.  It's  the  ambiguity 
of  her  situation  that  I  feel;  she's  either  a  friend  of  my 
mother's  or  a  friend  of  yours  — " 

"She's  no  friend  of  mine,"  said  the  duke;  "in  the  depths 
of  her  heart  she  hates  me." 

"Then  why?—" 

"  Why  didn't  she  stay  in  America?  She  hates  every  one 
else  equally;  but  nevertheless  it's  a  question  I've  often 
asked  myself." 

"Of  course,  at  Tours,  she  gets  her  summer  cheaply." 

"  But  that's  not  the  reason  she  didn't  stay  in  Amer 
ica!"  The  duke  spoke  more  to  himself  than  to  his 
son. 

But  his  son  took  him  up.  "  She'd  get  her  summer  quite 
as  cheaply  there  ?  Or  is  it  that  she's  not  mercenary  ?" 

"Now  that  Jane  is  provided  for,  why  should  she  be?" 

"Jane?" 

"  Her  beautiful  daughter  who  married  Mr.  Parrish." 

"Was  providing  for  Jane  her  reason  for  ever  being?" 


LA  BELLE  FRANCE  335 

"It's  often  occurred  to  me  that  Jane  will  have  to  answer 
to  the  good  God—"  The  duke  cut  himself  short.  "I 
forget,  at  times,  that  you're  only  a  boy."  The  rebuke  had 
been  slow  in  coming.  There  was  a  pause,  fraught  with 
embarrassment,  while  Rodrick  gathered  up  the  scattered 
beginnings  of  his  poem. 

in 

At  Tours  and  at  the  chateau  the  days  followed  one  upon 
the  other  with  more  incident  than  accident.  Rodrick 
crossed  the  Channel  to  his  school,  the  Princess  Karina  — 
back  from  America  —  settled  herself  in  his  place  with  an 
appearance  of  permanence,  and  Mme.  Rostov,  it  was  said, 
had  dismissed  M.  Gadillon  once  for  all.  When  she  arrived 
at  Tours,  —  she  and  her  husband  took  it  on  their  way  up 
from  Biarritz,  —  she  had  in  her  bag  a  new  admirer,  one  of 
her  own  countrymen  and,  it  was  whispered,  high  in  the  Rus 
sian  government.  M.  Rostov's  manners  were  still  of  the 
best.  The  charming  Austrian,  wife  of  the  duke's  cousin, 
paid  her  husband's  relatives  a  visit,  and  autumn  found 
'  Douce- Ameire'  the  perfect  scene  of  perfect  pleasures. 
Mrs.  Dench  was  reminded  of  the  water-color  in  her  pos 
session,  the  one  attributed  by  many  to  the  great  Watteau. 
Civilization  must  have  travelled  far,  surely,  and  perhaps 
turned  the  corner,  when  gayety  could  be  brought  to  such  a 
point. 

In  America,  also,  civilization  had  travelled;  and  to  such 
purpose  that  it  had  forged  ahead  of  humanity  itself,  which 
in  the  mass  had  builded  better  than  it  knew  —  accomplished 
feats  which  in  their  greatness  belittled  the  individual  work 
man.  In  France  humanity  was  in  the  lead;  civilization 


336  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

might  have  journeyed,  but  it  had  done  so  in  the  service  of 
its  masters.  It  made  for  perfect  pleasures  and  high, 
mature  joys,  and  the  convenience  of  people  who  knew  the 
game  and  yet  played  it.  In  America  the  playing  of  the 
game  was  largely  left  to  those  who  had  to  eke  out  in  spon 
taneity  and  youth  what  they  lacked  in  skill.  A  real  profi 
ciency  was  looked  at  askance.  Mrs.  Bench  knew  the  Amer 
ican  argument  —  that  the  most  decent  excuse  for  a  real 
proficiency  was  a  real,  and  Americanly  rare,  leisure;  and 
even  then  were  the  more  fine-spun  complications  worth 
while  ?  In  America  when  they  occurred  they  ended  in  the 
divorce  courts;  but  that  wasn't  proficiency. 

America  seemed  very  far  away  from  '  Douce-Amere.' 
If  it  had  not  been  for  the  Princess  Karina  and  the  Paris 
Herald  and  an  occasional  letter  from  David  Barlow  or  Jane, 
Mrs.  Dench  might  have  thought  it  ingulfed  by  a  tidal  wave. 
The  princess  was  full  of  anecdote  —  there  in  the  '  Metro ' 
there  was  no  premiere  dasse ;  one  rode,  democratically, 
with  all  the  world ;  and  as  for  cabs !  —  they  were  for  mil- 
lionnaires.  At  the  Barlows'  she  had  had  at  her  service  one  of 
their  automobiles;  but  after,  when  she  had  visited  friends 
in  Boston  and  then  taken  an  appalling  journey  to  Chicago, 
she  had  been  more  left  to  find  her  own  methods  of  locomo 
tion.  Chicago  had  made  much  of  the  Princess  Karina,  and 
she  in  turn  had  liked  it,  even  though  she  found  it  more 
typical  of  the  great  country  across  the  water  than  were  the 
cities  of  the  East.  Mrs.  Dench  found  it  far  too  typical  ; 
when  she  had  lived  in  Ohio,  before  Christopher  Dench  had 
taken  her  to  Washington,  she  had  done  all  her  shopping 
there.  The  princess  scanned  the  pages  of  the  Paris  Herald 
for  news  of  Chicago  friends  who  were  due  to  arrive  in  Paris ; 


LA  BELLE  FRANCE  337 

Mrs.  Bench  assisted  her  and  was  rewarded  by  seeing  a 
notice  of  "Mrs.  Dallowfield." 

The  book  that  the  author  of  "The  Cuckoo"  had  been 
engaged  upon  for  so  long  was  finally  before  a  waiting  public. 
It  was  too  soon  yet  to  tell  with  what  results.  It  seemed  to 
lack  "The  Cuckoo's"  extraordinary  virility  —  its  realism 
was  of  a  gentler  sort;  but  genius  was  there,  unmistakably. 
A  letter  from  David  Barlow  confirmed  this  report.  Miss 
Stedman  had  worked  herself  to  the  bone,  the  book  was  out, 
and  the  material  rewards  of  success  were  still  to  come; 
though  their  coming  didn't  worry  her  —  strangely.  She 
was  cleverer  than  ever,  and  he  confessed  himself  won.  Mrs. 
Dench  felt  safe  in  the  confession's  frankness.  He  had  begun 
his  long-delayed  last  year  at  Law  School. 

Jane,  in  a  letter  which  arrived  by  the  same  mail,  dis 
missed  "Mrs.  Dallowfield"  with  a  line.  She'd  seen  it 
advertised  —  she  hoped  the  book  of  her  husband's  cousin 
wouldn't  be  too  dreadful.  They  were  leaving  Blythedale 
Heights  for  the  house  in  the  sixties  near  Lexington  Avenue. 
They  had  finally  secured  it  at  a  sum  which  Jane  thought 
they  could  barely  afford;  but  Ralph  would  not  balk  at 
the  extra  thousands;  it  was  modern  and  pretty  and  alto 
gether  suited  them.  They'd  been  very  busy  buying  fur 
niture,  though  the  few  bits  Mrs.  Dench  had  left  behind  her 
had  helped  them  out  with  the  parlor,  and  Ralph's  mother 
had  sent  them  a  crate  of  things  from  Hornmouth.  The 
dining  room  was  to  be  pure  colonial,  but  in  the  parlor  two  of 
Mrs.  Parrish's  chairs  were  to  rub  elbows  with  the  famous 
French,  gilt-trimmed  sofa.  They  were  to  keep  three  ser 
vants  —  two  women  and  a  strong  boy  ;  in  New  York  it 
seemed  a  fairly  adequate  force;  in  Europe,  of  course,  it 


338  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

would  be  nothing.  In  the  spring  they  would  need  more. 
Jane  stated,  without  equivocation,  that  in  the  spring  she 
was  expecting  a  child. 

At '  Douce- Amere'  the  news  was  discussed  with  continen 
tal  simplicity.  Mrs.  Bench  felt  herself  already  a  grand 
mother.  She  could  have  wished  that  Jane  had  not  told  her  ; 
or  perhaps  the  fault  was  her  own,  for  she  had  gone  straight 
with  the  letter  in  her  hand  to  find  the  duchess. 

In  October  the  days  were  still  mild,  and  the  duchess  was 
sitting  in  her  favorite  walled  garden  embroidering  a  gold 
cloth  which  was  destined  to  grace  the  altar  of  the  Tours 
church.  Her  friend's  news  brought  her  to  her  feet.  She 
professed  to  envy  her  her  happiness:  "With  all  my  heart 
I  envy  you.  I  long  for  the  moment  when  I  may  take  in 
my  own  arms  a  grandchild.  The  little  Berthe  and  the  little 
Celeste  are  still  young,  but  I  have  ideas  for  them  —  oh, 
yes,  I  have  ideas !  This  must  indeed  be  a  crown  to  your 
labors  —  a  reward  for  your  unselfishness.  You  took  that 
horrible  voyage  across  the  Atlantic  —  you  immured  your 
self  in  a  terrible  place  called  'Ocean  City'  —  but  now  you 
must  feel  that  your  nobility  was  not  in  vain." 

Mrs.  Dench  replied  briefly,  "Not  so  fast,  my  dear,  not 
so  fast!" 

They  had  attracted  the  attention  of  Mme.  Rostov,  who, 
with  charming  rusticity,  was  bending  low  over  a  late-bloom 
ing  flower.  Her  Russian  was  not  far  distant.  The  two 
came  up  to  demand  the  cause  of  the  excitement,  and  the 
duchess  unhesitatingly  gave  it  to  them.  Mrs.  Dench  was 
again  congratulated  and  felt,  for  perhaps  the  first  time  in 
her  life,  a  certain  embarrassment.  It  was  an  embarrassment 
that  the  others  did  not  share.  "And  Jane  was  so  pretty," 


LA  BELLE  FRANCE  339 

Mme.  Rostov  was  heard  to  say  as  she  wandered  back  to 
her  flower. 

Despite  the  clemency  of  the  weather  in  Tours,  the  occu 
pants  of '  Douce- Ame're'  were  planning  to  fly  south.  The 
Mediterranean  called;  the  Jungfrau  was  being  put  into 
commission.  There  was  a  villa  in  the  island  of  Cyprus  — 
they  had  once  stopped  at  Cyprus  for  coal  —  that  had  a 
walled  garden  not  unlike  the  garden  at  '  Douce-Amere. ' 
The  duchess  had  seen  it  and  loved  it  and,  such  was  the  power 
of  her  wealth,  now  possessed  it.  Should  they  weary  of 
life  on  the  ocean  wave,  it  awaited  their  pleasure.  Olive 
trees  grew  in  the  garden,  and  the  other  side  of  the  wall  was 
lapped  by  the  waters  of  the  Mediterranean.  They  could 
fancy  themselves  tossed  there  by  wind  and  storm,  the 
duchess  told  them,  and  Mme.  Rostov  shivered.  Her 
Russian  might  visit  them,  coming  down  from  the  north  by 
way  of  Constantinople  and  the  Black  Sea.  Mme.  Rostov 
thought  it  wonderful  to  be  able  to  gather  one's  friends  and 
one's  friends'  friends  wherever  one  went.  It  would  almost 
seem  like  Paris,  the  only  place  in  the  world  where  one's 
friends  were,  without  gathering.  But  Jane's  letter  now 
made  it  doubtful  whether  the  gathering  would  be  complete. 
The  duchess  had  a  high  ideal  of  the  responsibilities  of 
motherhood;  she  thought  of  Mrs.  Dench  as  leaving  for 
America  just  at  the  time  when  Cyprus  and  the  Mediter 
ranean  would  be  most  worth  while,  and  hardly  believed 
her  assurance  to  the  contrary. 

"I  wouldn't  go  for  anything  on  earth.  I've  done  with 
my  native  land;  it  could  only  be  a  pain  to  go  there.  Jane, 
if  she  cares  to,  may  occasionally  come  to  me  —  she  can 
fight  that  out  with  her  husband." 


340  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

The  duchess  stared.     "  Fight  ?  " 

"It  would  be  a  fight,  I  assure  you."  Mrs.  Bench  pointed 
to  her  daughter's  letter  which  now  lay  on  the  seat  beside 
her  —  "But  he  there  sends  me  his  regards  !  " 

"I  thought  you  and  he  were  very  good  friends." 

"We  are.    Can't  there  be  regards  between  friends?" 

"  But  you  say  that  there  would  be  a  fight  if  Jane  were  to 
visit  you." 

"It  goes  without  saying  that  a  young  husband  doesn't 
altogether  countenance  a  separation  from  his  wife,  however 
brief." 

"He  might  come,  too;  before  he  was  married  he  came 
often  enough.  His  occupation  —  what  is  it,  the  buying 
and  selling  of  furs?  —  brought  him." 

Mrs.  Bench  admitted  the  truth  of  all  that.  "When  he 
comes,  I'll  let  you  know,  my  dear." 

To  talk  of  him  made  him  less  real  to  her  —  seemed  to 
cloud  the  clearness  of  her  remembrance  as  a  window-glass 
is  clouded  by  scratching.  She  had  strangely  brought  to  her 
passion  a  certain  freshness,  and  there  were  times  when  it  still 
held  her  even  when  she  was  most  occupied  with  the  highly 
civilized  joys  of l  Bouce-AmSre.'  It  was  then  she  was  most 
aware  of  its  hovering  presence;  the  joys  and  beauties  of 
'  Bouce-Amere '  palely  resembled  other  joys  and  other 
beauties,  the  brief  joy  of  her  passion  and  the  beauty  of  the 
week  —  the  last  one  —  in  Paris.  She  might,  on  a  larger 
scale,  have  been  Emily  Stedman  battling  with  visions  of 
Bavid  Barlow.  There  were  times  when  the  feast  'Bouce- 
Amere'  spread  before  her  turned  to  ashes  in  her  mouth; 
she  wanted  water,  and  talk  of  it  partly  quenched  her  thirst. 
She  who  had  been  an  advocate  of  action  rather  than  of 


LA  BELLE  FRANCE  341 

theory  had  never  before  realized  the  value  of  talk.  She 
more  than  once  so  far  forgot  herself  as  a  diplomat's  widow 
as  to  be  tempted  to  talk  to  Mme.  Rostov.  She  felt  sure  that 
lady  would  have  understood;  but  of  course  it  was  impos 
sible.  Mme.  Rostov  had  never  talked  to  her.  She  would 
not  confess  herself  the  weaker,  if  for  no  other  reason. 

And  it  happened  that  there  were  other  reasons  to  burn. 
Not  least  among  these  was  her  own  saving  sense  of  the  ri 
diculous;  she  didn't  see  herself  as  the  victim  of  a  hopeless 
passion  for  the  husband  of  her  beautiful  young  daughter. 
Neither  did  she  see  herself  in  that  aspect  through  the  eyes 
of  Maurice  de  Clopin.  Her  tenure  at  'Douce-Amere,' 
Cyprus,  the  Mediterranean,  depended  almost  as  much  upon 
him  as  it  did  upon  the  duchess.  She  wouldn't  foolishly 
jeopardize  it;  it  was  too  valuable.  Mrs.  Dench  had,  happily, 
a  kind  of  large  common  sense  which  had  come  to  her  aid  in 
the  direction  of  her  affairs  before  now,  and  she  was  fully 
aware  that  even  for  her  the  Maurice  de  Clopins  didn't  grow 
on  every  bush.  He  cared  about  her ;  she  would  do  her  best 
not  to  shatter  his  illusion.  She  knew  enough  of  the  char 
acter  of  illusion  to  appreciate  its  fragility.  One  laugh  on 
the  wrong  side  of  the  mouth,  and  it  might  lead  to  another 
and  yet  another.  She  would  find  herself  carried  on  the 
wings  of  laughter  to  the  wrong  side  of  the  door.  There 
would  be  nothing  left  for  her  then,  except,  perhaps,  David 
Barlow.  She  had  once  thought  of  David  as  a  match  for 
Jane ;  the  plan  had  miscarried,  and  she  now  wondered  if 
she  might  do  no  worse  than  some  day  marry  him  herself. 
She  would  send  for  him  from  the  Mediterranean,  and  he 
would  come.  The  audacity  of  the  idea  made  to  her  its 
strong  appeal,  even  though  the  last  man  whom  she  had 
asked  to  marry  her  had  unqualifiedly  refused. 


342  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

But  the  contingency  would  never  arise.  The  duke's 
illusion  had  nothing  to  shatter  it.  It  was  he  —  not  she  — 
who  lived  at  the  edge  of  the  volcano.  The  dread  that  she 
might  leave  was  ever  present  to  him.  During  her  last  ab 
sence  it  was  plain  that  he  had  suffered  the  tortures  of  the 
damned.  "You'll  stay  with  us;  you'll  go  south  with 
us?  " 

She  reassured  him.    "I'll  stay  till  you  turn  me  out  1" 

"Oh,  my  angel,  we'll  never  do  that !" 


CHAPTER  XVI 

DUST  AND   LIGHT 

"And  all  about  were  dust  and  light, 
Two  things  from  which  glory  is  made." 

—  VICTOR  HUGO. 


NEARLY  two  years  had  passed  since  the  representative  of 
the  New  York  Star  had  called  upon  Miss  Stedman  at  Horn- 
mouth.  He  had  done  so  then  at  the  instance  of  Redding, 
the  managing  editor;  and  journeyed  —  rather  against  his 
inclination  —  all  the  way  from  New  York  in  order  that  the 
columns  of  the  Star  might  be  enlivened  by  an  interview 
with  the  author  of  "The  Cuckoo."  In  those  two  years 
Fortune  had  modestly  knocked  at  his  door.  A  series  of 
happy  turns  of  her  wheel  had  put  him  in  command  of  a 
journal  of  his  own  —  a  small  weekly  organ,  the  underlying 
purpose  of  which  was  to  further  the  combined  interests  of 
a  number  of  publishing  houses;  but  also  containing  de 
partments  devoted  to  politics  and  the  drama,  besides  an 
occasional  example  of  the  scribbler's  art  it  assumed  to 
criticise.  These  examples  were  often  unworthy.  The 
new  editor  bestirred  himself.  As  the  opportunity  offered, 
he  personally  visited  those  writers  whose  pens  had  a  recog 
nized  skill  and  put  before  them  terms  it  would  be  hard  to 
refuse. 

343 


344  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

It  was  in  the  discharge  of  this  business  that  he  found  him 
self  again  at  Hornmouth.  He  had  learned  that  Miss  Sted- 
man  had  returned  there  from  New  York,  and  that  she  was 
engaged  upon  a  third  immortal  work.  His  head  spun  at  the 
prolificness  of  writers,  he  thought  them  a  race  possessed 
of  driving  devils.  No  sooner  had  they  breathed  deep  from 
one  finished  labor  than  they  were  in  the  midst  of  another. 
"The  Cuckoo"— "Mrs.  Dallowfield "  —  what  would  be 
the  next  ?  Whatever  it  was,  he  desired  to  secure  for  the 
Folio  its  serial  rights.  In  "Mrs.  Dallowfield"  Emily  Sted- 
man  hadn't  duplicated  "The  Cuckoo's"  popular  success; 
but  she  had  done  something  infinitely  more  worth  while; 
her  audience  made  up  in  quality  what  it  lacked  in  quantity; 
her  reputation  began  to  rest  solidly. 

In  his  note  he  had  recalled  himself  to  her  —  recounted  the 
occasion  of  their  other  meeting  —  so  she  greeted  him  as  an 
old  acquaintance. 

"You  remembered,"  he  said,  "when  I  was  here?" 

"Of  course  I  did.  Only  you  weren't  here;  you  were  in 
the  little  yellow  house  next  door  that  has  since  been  torn 
down.  You  see,  I'm  now  living  with  my  cousin,  Mrs. 
Parrish.  I've  permanently  taken  up  my  abode  with  her." 

He  had  learned  that,  too.  He  broached  the  object  of  his 
mission ;  but  Miss  Stedman  wasn't  at  all  sure  that  she  could 
meet  him.  It  was  a  thing  she  didn't  care  about,  binding 
herself  before  a  book  was  finished  —  she  was  too  uncertain. 

"Uncertain?" 

"  I  have  to  do  my  work  when  I  may.  It  might  be  years 
before  I  could  turn  anything  over  to  you.  All  my  life, 
you  know,  I've  carried  on  my  back  the  burden  of  ill  health." 

Her  back  hadn't  bent  under  it;  it  had  rather  stiffened 


DUST  AND  LIGHT  345 

to  a  conscious  straightness.  She  carried  her  burden  more 
like  a  banner;  it  shone  brilliant  in  the  paleness  of  her  skin 
and  the  queer  lightness  of  the  eyes  that  were  so  set  in  dark 
ness.  Samson-like,  her  strength  seemed  to  be  concen 
trated  in  her  hair,  which  was  dull  and  thick  and  brushed 
high  from  her  brow.  Her  visitor  thought  he  remembered 
it  parted  and  flat.  But  two  years  had  left  their  mark  on 
Emily  Stedman  in  other  ways  than  the  dressing  of  her  hair. 
It  was  not  the  obvious  mark  usually  left  by  years;  it  was 
mental  rather  than  physical,  and  so  much  a  matter  of  the 
inner  being  that  the  editor  of  the  Folio  discerned  it  but 
vaguely. 

As  the  author  of  "The  Cuckoo"  she  had  rejoiced  in  an 
eagerness  —  almost  an  appetite  —  for  the  life  that  was  all 
before  her.  It  had  been  the  chief  cause  of  "The  Cuckoo's" 
success  that  though  the  subject  was  very  consciously  base, 
its  treatment  was  very  unconsciously  fresh.  She  had  come 
at  her  baseness  with  the  invalid's  immaturity,  the  invalid's 
inexperience,  and  also  the  invalid's  unspoiled  relish  —  the 
sort  of  idealization  of  the  vulgar  of  one  who  has  for  it  no 
terms  either  of  suggestion  or  comparison.  As  the  author  of 
"Mrs.  Dallowfield,"  her  eagerness  was  narrowed  to  certain 
definite  desires;  her  immaturity  had  hardened,  and  so  been 
transmuted;  her  inexperience  was  less  absolute  She  still 
carried  her  burden,  —  or  her  banner,  —  her  horizon  was  still 
in  a  measure  bounded  by  her  physical  limitations ;  but  she 
was  within  an  ace  of  extending  it,  within  an  ace  of  the  ac 
complishment  so  much  dwelt  upon  by  the  spiritually 
minded,  that  of  leaving  her  physical  limitations  behind 
her.  Her  body  had  always  been  to  her  a  hindrance,  not  a 
help;  it  was  the  curved  mirror  in  which  she  was  forced  to 


346  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

see,  and  the  feat  she  so  narrowly  escaped  performing  was 
that  of  turning  squarely  away  and  looking  at  the  world 
undistorted.  Her  life  was  a  constant  knocking  at  the  wall. 
As  it  is  said  that  spirits  knock  to  be  taken  back  to  their 
earthly  estate,  so  she  made  the  effort  to  be  removed  from 
hers  without  the  complicity  of  death. 

It  was  this  familiarity  with  the  wall,  and  the  unreflected 
glimpses  which  she  had  indubitably  had,  that  gave  her, 
as  the  author  of  "Mrs.  Dallowfield, "  a  relish  for  baseness 
less  unspoiled.  As  the  author  of  "Mrs.  Dallowfield,"  there 
were  passages  in  "  The  Cuckoo"  which  filled  her  with  horror. 
Yet  she  was  glad  that  she  had  written  them  while  she  could ; 
they  had  paid  her  railway  fare  away  from  Hornmouth,  had 
made  possible  the  development  of  her  immortal  mind. 
Her  two  years  had  been  for  her  a  mingling  of  failure  and 
success.  In  knocking  at  the  wall  she  had  bruised  her 
knuckles;  in  pursuit  of  what  Dr.  Guthrie  had  once  defined 
as  the  damnably  normal,  she  had  grown  short  of  breath. 
She  was  worn  as  fine  as  a  stone  over  which  a  stream  has 
passed;  she  was  worn  smooth  also,  and  as  she  stood  there 
in  the  big  parlor  at  Hornmouth  there  was  something  in  her 
smoothness  and  her  fineness,  the  darkness  of  her  hair  and 
the  whiteness  of  her  skin  —  the  dark  note  repeated  in  her 
gown  and  the  white  in  the  handkerchief  she  twisted  with 
slim,  nervous  fingers  —  something  which  would  have  made 
it  not  altogether  strange  if  she  had  suddenly  gathered  her 
skirts  about  her  and  vanished  into  thin  air.  She  had  a 
kinship  with  the  supernatural;  she  gave  an  effect  not  quite 
human;  you  felt  that  her  pursuit  of  the  damnably  normal 
had  somewhat  signally  failed. 

But  to  the  editor  of  the  Folio  her  failures  didn't  count. 


DUST   AND   LIGHT  347 

For  his  purpose  she  was  all  on  the  side  of  success.  Her  name 
on  the  cover  of  his  journal  would  have  a  definite  value. 
He  gave  it  to  her  in  cold  figures. 

She  still  refused.  She  couldn't  promise  anything;  she 
was  really  uncertain. 

"It's  my  risk,  you  know,  if  you're  uncertain.  If  my 
terms  don't  seem  to  you  good  enough  — " 

"  They're  more  than  good  —  they're  generous ;  but  I'm 
now  so  arranged  that  terms  don't  matter.  As  I  think  I 
once  told  you,  'The  Cuckoo'  took  me  out  of  Hornmouth. 
Well  —  '  Mrs.  Dallowfield'  has  brought  me  back.  If 
my  new  book  should  take  me  out  again,  I  should  feel  like  a 
Jack-in-the-box.  I  live  with  my  cousin;  the  pleasure  of 
my  company  is  all  she  desires  in  return  for  her  hospitality, 
and  my  own  few  separate  wants  are  easily  supplied." 

The  editor  smiled.     "So  you  can't  be  reached?" 

"No,  I  can't  be  reached." 

"  You  know  I'm  not  sure  that  you  like  the  Folio ! " 

"  I  like  it  immensely." 

"  Of  course,  if  that's  the  case,  I've  nothing  to  say." 

"  What  could  you  ?    You  go  back  to  New  York  to-night  ?  " 

"No,  I'm  spending  a  few  days  in  Boston.  I've  some 
business  there." 

She  consulted  her  watch.  "I  think  there's  a  train  at 
five-five.  I'll  have  you  driven  to  the  station." 

He  couldn't  think  of  troubling  her,  but  she  was  firm,  and 
his  hesitations  were  interrupted  by  the  sound  of  wheels  on 
the  gravel  driveway.  "  There  —  you  see  !  —  it's  the  carriage 
now.  You'll  have  to  take  it." 

"As  you  say." 

She  had  crossed  the  room  to  the  windowed  side,  and  she 


348  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

now  turned.  "It's  Mr.  Barlow.  I'd  utterly  forgotten  he 
was  coming!" 

She  concealed  her  forgetfulness  from  its  object,  however, 
who  was  upon  them  the  next  moment,  a  young  man  as 
hard  and  fine  and  smooth  as  she.  For  a  spinster  of  uncer 
tain  years  the  editor  of  the  Folio  thought  Miss  Stedman 
wonderfully  rich  in  young  men.  Two  years  ago  he  had 
found  her  in  the  company  of  her  tall,  blond  cousin,  and  he 
now  left  her  in  that  of  Mr.  Barlow,  who,  she  explained,  had 
just  come  from  the  place  to  which  he  was  just  going  —  he 
was  studying  law  at  Cambridge. 

She  gave  the  departing  editor  a  moment's  grace  before  she 
confronted  David  Barlow :  "  Jane  has  a  son." 

David  was  pulling  off  his  gloves.  "Bully  for  Jane! 
When?" 

"This  morning.  Cousin  Laura  is  with  her,  and  tele 
graphed." 

David  laid  his  gloves  side  by  side  upon  a  table.  "I 
thought  perhaps  Mrs.  Dench  —  " 

"So  did  I,  but  she  hasn't." 

He  was  suddenly  almost  fierce.  "  Why  the  devil  should 
she?" 

"She  shouldn't.  She'd  be  like  a  fifth  wheel  to  a 
cart." 

David  made  some  inarticulate  reply  to  this  as  he  laid  his 
hat  beside  his  gloves.  He  was  struck  by  a  new  phase  of  the 
situation.  "  I'll  go  to  the  hotel  in  the  village." 

"Why?" 

"  Why  ?    With  Mrs.  Parrish  not  here,  don't  you  see  ?  — " 

"Of  course  —  I  see.     But  you'll  have  dinner  first." 

"It's  not  inconvenient?    You  must  be  so  excited." 


DUST  AND  LIGHT  349 

"My  dear  David,  it's  just  because  I'm  excited  that  I  want 
you  to  cheer  me  up !" 

"I'll  do  my  best." 

His  best  didn't  seem  much  to  boast  of;  he  was  more  than 
usually  quiet.  Dinner  did  little  to  animate  his  gravity, 
and  the  work  of  enlivenment  fell  wholly  upon  Emily.  She 
faced  him  in  the  big  dining  room  from  whose  walls  there 
gazed  down  generations  of  Parrishes.  "David,  David,  do 
you  think  they  know  that  to-day  their  ranks  have  been  re 
cruited?" 

"They?" 

"Why,  old  Carrington  Parrish  sitting  up  there  in  the 
bottle-green  coat,  and  General  James  on  the  other  side,  and 
the  original  Praise  God  who  built  with  his  own  hands  the 
stockade  every  one  lived  in  for  so  long.  Do  they  know?" 
Her  fancy  played  about  that  conceit. 

"  It's  always  struck  me,"  she  went  on,  "  that  if  Praise  God 
Parrish  hadn't  been  so  busy  building  stockades,  he'd  have 
built  something  far  less  meritorious.  Don't  you  see  with 
what  difficulty  he's  fastened  his  Puritan  collar,  and  how  his 
eyes  are  everywhere  but  on  the  Bible  beside  him  ?  I  know 
the  portrait  is  merely  a  copy  of  a  miniature  that  was  painted 
before  he  left  England,  and  it  may  malign  him.  Do  you 
realize,  David,  that  some  day  my  little  cousin  will  be  sit 
ting  here,  at  this  table,  in  this  very  room,  having  din 
ner?" 

David  looked  up.  "  Your  little  cousin  and  Mrs.  Dench's 
little  grandchild." 

"That's  true." 

"She  should  have  come."  David  spoke  more  to  himself 
than  to  his  companion. 


350  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"  Perhaps  she  couldn't." 

"  Nonsense ! ' ' 

They  went  on  in  silence  with  the  conduct  of  dinner.  At 
last  Emily  ventured.  "  If  she  had  come,  would  you  have 
seen  her?" 

"How  could  I  not?" 

"  No,  she's  not  invisible !  But  I  thought  that  perhaps 
under  the  circumstances  — " 

"What  circumstances  ?" 

But  Emily  didn't  balk.     "  You  never  quarrelled  ?  " 

"  Never.  Mrs.  Dench  quarrelled  —  with  Ralph  Parrish. 
She  told  me  that  America  wasn't  big  enough  to  hold  them 
both." 

"Ah  —  wouldn't  that  explain  her  not  coming?"  Emily 
was  proud  of  her  find,  but  David  Barlow  told  her  that  with 
such  an  extraordinary  woman  as  Mrs.  Dench,  explana 
tions  were  hopeless. 

There  was  a  note  of  impatience  in  Emily's  reply.  "  Oh, 
she's  not  half  as  extraordinary  as  you  think !" 

David  rose  and  came  over  to  her  side  of  the  table. 
"You're  not  jealous?" 

Her  eyes  communed  with  the  roving  ones  of  Praise  God 
Parrish.  "  Jealous  ?  —  I ' ve  no  right." 

ii 

In  late  May  and  early  June  Hornmouth  was  more  than 
ever  charming.  Mrs.  Parrish's  lawn  was  vivid  like  emerald; 
her  hedges  —  newly  clipped  —  were  green  walls  of  foliage  and 
the  earth  in  her  garden  was  soaked  dark  from  the  spring  rain. 
Beyond  the  garden  rolling  pasture  lands  met  the  pale 
spring  sky;  and  in  the  orchard  lately  fallen  apple  blossoms 


DUST   AND   LIGHT  351 

lay  white  upon  the  ground.  It  was  the  one  time  in  all  the 
year  when  the  Northern  climate  abated  its  violence;  the 
sharp  colds  of  winter  were  left  behind  and  the  fierce  heats  of 
summer  were  still  to  come  —  or  it  might  be  that  the  two 
had  met  and  blended  to  the  palliation  of  both.  It  was  a  fu 
sion  the  vigor  of  whose  separate  parts  oddly  resulted  in  an 
exceptional  delicacy.  The  florid  redundance  of  the  more 
Southern  spring  was  replaced  by  a  spareness  and  a  fineness ; 
at  Hornmouth  budding  vegetation  didn't  have  too  easy  a 
time;  that  which  survived  attained  the  uniform  perfection 
of  the  fittest. 

The  windows  of  Emily's  room  were  open  wide  to  the 
sunlight  which  served,  at  Hornmouth,  a  purpose  utilitarian 
as  well  as  aesthetic ;  for  Mrs.  Parrish's  housekeeping  was  of 
the  relentless  sort,  and  sheets,  blankets,  and  pillows  were 
scattered  in  commanding  positions.  Emily's  bed  had  been 
subjected  to  the  process  known  as  stripping,  while  she  her 
self  was  still  completing  her  toilet.  She  stood  before  the 
mirror  putting  on  her  hat.  She  was  dressed  unmistakably 
for  town,  and  a  small  trunk  —  strapped  and  locked  —  gave 
further  evidence  of  impending  travel. 

She  was  thus  leaving  Hornmouth  in  the  full  freshness  of 
its  happiest  season  —  taking  the  long,  trying  journey  to 
New  York  —  with  the  sole  object  of  laying  a  ghost.  It  had 
bothered  her  and  haunted  her  and  beckoned  her,  had  come 
to  her  shrouded  and  white,  and  none  the  less  appalling  for 
being  but  the  ghost  of  a  place  —  the  ghost,  or  the  vision,  of 
the  apartment  in  the  late  thirties.  The  late  thirties  haunted 
her.  The  little  gilt-trimmed  parlor,  that  was  like  nothing 
so  much  as  the  inside  of  a  milliner's  bonnet  box,  seemed  to 
cry  out  to  be  lived  in.  She  had  left  it,  merely  turning  the 


352  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

key  in  the  door,  and  she  pictured  the  gayly  patterned  chintz 
faded  white  from  the  sun  and  the  polished  dining  table  dull 
with  dust.  Her  lease  had  had  a  year  yet  to  run,  and  it  had 
been  her  intention  to  send  for  her  things  at  her  own  good 
time.  But  her  own  good  time  had  been  slow  in  coming; 
she  hadn't  sent,  and  now  when  she  thought  of  it  she  dreaded 
to  see  damaged  reminders  of  former  glories.  She  saw  them 
in  her  mind's  eye,  these  former  glories;  she  saw  how  at 
Hornmouth  they  wouldn't  be  in  keeping  —  it  was  one  more 
reason  for  procrastination.  But  there  was  another  reason 

—  less  worthy  —  she  had  merely  turned  the  key  in  the  door 

—  it  would  be  so  very  easy  to  turn  it  the  other  way.    That 
was  her  temptation;  the  ghost  of  the  late  thirties  beckoned 
her  to  come  back.     Without  Ralph  Parrish  it  might  prove 
a  rather  empty  joy;   but  she  felt  at  times  ready  to  take 
the  risk  of  it.     Day  by  day  her  temptation  had  worn  upon 
her,  and  she  had  caught  it  so  near  to  victory  that  she  at 
last  decided  to  remove  it  beyond  all  reach  of  possibility; 
she  would  have  the  late  thirties  swept  bare  —  even  at  the 
cost  of  having  her  precious  former  glories  cut  for  kindling 
wood. 

The  apartment  in  the  late  thirties  was  the  nearest  ap 
proach  she  had  ever  come  to  a  house  of  her  own,  an  edifice 
raised  by  her  own  effort  to  fill  her  own  need.  She  felt  for  it 
the  passion  of  possession;  from  the  leopard-skin  rug  to  the 
little  glass  case,  it  had  been  all  so  intimately  hers.  She  felt 
herself  in  deserting  it  false  to  a  kind  of  trust.  Yet  wouldn't 
she  have  been  falser  in  not  deserting  it?  Wasn't  her  real 
trust  not  a  house  but  a  God-given  talent  which  it  rested 
with  her  not  to  squander  and  debase  ?  In  Hornmouth  her 
talent  could  ride  free;  in  the  late  thirties  it  would  be 


DUST  AND   LIGHT  353 

weighted  by  the  editor  of  the  Folio.  The  late  thirties 
without  the  editor  of  the  Folio  —  ah,  she  hadn't  the 
strength  for  struggle  !  The  blank  yellow  pads  that  had  once 
seemed  to  her  her  one  avenue  of  escape  from  Hornmouth, 
now,  by  her  loyalty  to  them,  led  her  straight  back  there. 

To-day  she  was  going  to  New  York,  and  a  week  from 
to-day  she  was  returning  to  Hornmouth,  houseless.  She 
would  lay  her  ghost  with  thoroughness;  she  would  reside 
—  henceforth  —  solely  in  her  God-given  talent.  And  that 
talent  had  been  nourished  by  her  residence  in  the  late 
thirties.  She  gave  the  devil  his  due. 

Mrs.  Parrish  drove  with  her  to  the  station.  "For  a 
person  who  isn't  strong,"  she  said,  "you  do  the  most  sur 
prising  things !"  It  had  been  Mrs.  Parrish's  idea  that  the 
extermination  of  the  late  thirties  should  be  put  in  the 
charge  of  Ralph.  He  was  there,  on  the  ground;  he  could 
set  movers  to  work  and  stop  in  himself  on  his  way  down 
town  in  the  morning.  Emily  could  explain  by  letter  the 
matter  of  disposition. 

But  his  cousin  refused  to  impose  on  him  anything  of  the 
kind.  He  had  quite  enough  to  think  about  without  being 
bothered  with  her  old  furniture.  "  We  mustn't  forget,"  said 
she,  "  that  he's  the  father  of  a  family." 

"  My  dear,  we're  not  likely  to  forget  it.  You  bring  it  to 
our  attention  twenty  times  a  day !" 

Emily  denied  any  such  garrulity. 

Mrs.  Parrish  put  a  question,  "When  will  you  see  them  — 
to-morrow?" 

"Probably.  I'll  find  out  from  Jane  when  it  would  be 
best." 

"You'll  dine  there." 


354  OTHER   PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"  Ah  —  but  I  don't  want  them  to  feel  me  on  their  minds. 
They  are  wrapped  up  !" 

"If  it  wasn't  for  the  baby,  they  wouldn't  have  heard  of 
your  going  to  a  hotel ;  but  they  still  have  two  nurses,  and  the 
house  isn't  enormous." 

Emily  caught  her  up.  "  It  was  you  who  mentioned  the 
baby  this  time !" 

"  I  can  mention  the  baby  all  I  like.  It's  not  the  baby's 
existence,  but  Ralph's  paternity,  which  always  seems  espe 
cially  to  strike  you." 

"Well,  don't  you  think  it  is  rather  appalling?" 

Mrs.  Parrish  didn't  in  the  least.  "To-morrow,  then, 
you'll  see  them?"  It  was  her  last  word  at  the  station. 

"Yes,  to-morrow,"  Emily  smiled  from  the  car  window, 
and  would  have  been  surprised  to  know  herself  braver  than 
Mrs.  Dench. 

The  morrow  was  a  Saturday.  She  found  to  her  grief  that 
it  would  be  impossible  to  begin  the  task  of  extermination 
till  the  following  Monday.  The  clerk  at  the  van  company 
was  adamant  in  the  face  of  her  entreaties.  In  June  Satur 
day  was  a  half-holiday,  and  had  been  so  since  the  beginning 
of  time.  Emily  solaced  herself  with  shopping  and  a  solitary 
lunch  at  Gaillard's.  She  might  have  lunched  with  Jane; 
but  she  was  almost  morbidly  sensitive  about  bothering  her, 
and  it  wasn't  till  after  the  hour  for  that  meal  was  past  that 
she  made  her  presence  known  to  her  over  the  telephone. 
She  was  scolded  for  her  tardiness  and  told  to  do  for  it  all  pos 
sible  penance.  There  had  been  another  who  hadn't  been  as 
sensitive  as  herself.  David  Barlow  was  on  from  Cambridge, 
and  he  had  dropped  in  in  the  morning  and  stayed  on;  he 
came  to  the  telephone  and  spoke  to  her. 


DUST   AND   LIGHT  355 

The  house  near  Lexington  Avenue  was  of  the  newer  base 
ment  sort.  From  the  street  one  went  down  to  the  entrance 
instead  of  up,  and  the  little  square  of  lower  level  thus  formed 
was  decorated  on  either  side  by  bay  trees  in  tubs.  Emily 
didn't  at  once  find  the  bell,  which  was  concealed  behind  a 
column,  and  as  it  was  a  moment  more  before  her  ring  was 
answered,  she  had  time  to  see  that,  in  spite  of  her  baby, 
Jane  didn't  neglect  her  front  stoop.  Within  there  was  still 
further  proof  that  the  young  Mrs.  Parrish  was  worthy  of 
the  old ;  the  white-painted  staircase  was  spotless,  and  the 
rugs  which  covered  the  hall  were  not  guilty  of  a  single  turned 
corner.  But  the  visitor's  approvals  were  cut  short  by  Ralph 
and  David,  who  came  out  to  her  from  a  little  room  where 
they  had  been  smoking  and  escorted  her  up  to  the  parlor. 
Jane  would  be  with  her  directly. 

"  You  haven't  been  here,"  said  Ralph,  "not  since  we  were 
in  order.  In  the  autumn,  I  remember,  things  were  hope 
lessly  mixed." 

"They're  certainly  not  mixed  now,"  said  David. 

Emily  was  equally  appreciative.  "  They're  charming !  I'd 
thought  of  offering  you  your  choice  of  my  few  possessions  — 
you  know  I'm  moving  out  of  my  apartment  for  good  —  but 
it  really  might  seem  an  impertinence,  you  have  so  much." 

"  Indeed,  we  haven't  —  I'm  sure  we'd  be  only  too  glad  - 
you  must  talk  to  Jane." 

" Does  she  rule  you,  Ralph,  with  a  rod  of  iron?" 

Ralph  Parrish  smiled  till  his  teeth  showed  beneath  his 
mustache.  "  I  should  say  she  did !  Here  —  I'll  go  and  see 
what's  keeping  her." 

Alone  with  her,  David  turned  to  Emily.  "Why  didn't 
you  tell  me  you  were  coming  to  New  York  ?  " 


356  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

"Would  you  then  not  have  come?" 

He  answered  her  only  indirectly.  "My  luck  must  be 
with  me  or  I  wouldn't  have  seen  you  at  all.  It  was  the 
merest  chance,  my  being  here,  and  I  want,  very  particularly, 
to  see  you.  I  was  coming  to  Hornmouth  next  week." 

"Ah  —  I  hope  you'll  still  come  —  I  hope  that  seeing  me 
now  won't  save  you  the  necessity." 

"Oh,  it's  not  a  necessity !" 

"The  luxury,  then." 

David  was  importunate.  "I  really  want  to  talk  to  you. 
Where  are  you  going  when  you  leave  here?" 

" I  think  to  Thirty-seventh  Street;  I  haven't  been  near 
there,  and  I  won't  vouch  for  its  condition,  but  if  what  you 
have  to  say  to  me  is  so  very  important  —  if  you'd  care 
to  come  with  me  — " 

"I  should  care  to,  tremendously." 

Emily's  eyes  were  on  the  door  through  which  the  family, 
Parrish,  were  momentarily  expected  to  appear.  "I'm  so 
anxious  to  see  Jane;  I  haven't  seen  her,  you  know,  since 
Christmas,  when  she  and  Ralph  were  at  Hornmouth." 

"And  of  course  you  must  be  very  anxious  to  see  your  little 
cousin  —  and  to  hear  him." 

"To  hear  him?" 

"Yes,  can't  you?" 

Emily  listened,  and  she  presently  distinguished  a  sound, 
faint  yet  sharp.  She  waited,  and  it  came  again  clearer  and 
louder,  a  shrill,  broken  crescendo  of  wails,  though  as  lacking 
in  conscious  expression  of  grief  as  the  crying  of  an  animal. 
It  was  the  voice  of  instinct,  as  discriminated  from  that  of 
emotion,  and  compelling  like  the  grating  of  a  file. 

"He  has  strong  lungs  —  your  little  cousin." 


DUST   AND   LIGHT  357 

"Yes  —  yes,  indeed  he  has !    Ah,  Jane  —  I  am  glad." 
The  door  had  yielded  its  treasure,  and  Jane  stood  before 
them,  very  tall  and  fair,  with  her  son  in  her  arms.     "I 
thought  you'd  like  to  see  him." 

Emily  laughed.     "He  evidently  didn't  wish  to  be  seen." 
"Oh,  he  didn't  care!    We  think  he  doesn't  like  to  be 
brought  downstairs.    He's  in  collusion  with  his  nurse,  who 
insists  it's  bad  for  him." 

"If  he  is,"  said  his  father,  "he  shows  abominable  taste. 
His  nurse  is  hideous." 

"His  nurse  doesn't  have  to  be  anything  else,"  Emily 
turned  to  David,  "his  sense  of  beauty  has  enough  to  feed 
upon  as  it  is." 

"Ralph,"  said  Jane,  "that's  a  compliment  for  us. " 
Emily  was  looking  at  her  little  cousin  with  the  awkward 
eyes  of  one  who  is  not  a  child  lover.  She  suspected  Jane  of 
intending  to  offer  her  the  privilege  of  holding  him,  and  it  was 
a  privilege  she  could  very  well  do  without.  She  was  occu 
pied  in  wondering  how  she  could  gracefully  refuse  it,  and 
was  thankful  as  the  moments  went  by  without  giving  her 
the  chance  —  her  suspicion  was  unfounded.  Her  little 
cousin  was  a  being  far  too  precious  to  be  toyed  with,  more 
precious  —  even  —  than  the  Chinese  porcelain  vase  that 
Mrs.  Dench  had  left  behind  her  and  that  now  adorned 
Jane's  mantelpiece.  But  in  spite  of  his  value  it  was,  as 
Mrs.  Parrish  had  said,  more  the  fact  of  his  father's  paternity 
than  that  of  his  own  little  existence  which  Emily  thought 
striking. 

She  had  never  seen  Parrish  more  splendid.  It  was  as  if 
his  wife  and  child  had  lent  to  him  a  dignity  —  a  nobility. 
His  roughly  drawn  perfection,  which  had  always  had  the 


358 


OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 


merit  of  being  past  dispute,  was  now  bathed  in  the  becoming 
light  of  a  kind  of  glorified  domesticity.     The  hint  he  some 
times  gave  of  triteness  was  lost  and  forgotten.     But  ^ 
marriage  had  done  for  him  was  incalculable :  he 
man  who  had  found  himself;   he  stood  • 
place,  his  faults  resolved  to  virtues,  t 
youth  fallen  from  him  like  a  discan1 
whose  one  imperfection  —  a  bn' 
was  something  the  very  rever- 
error  of  which  to  be  intoler" 
Her  beauty  had  the 
From  the  man  at  her 
learned  what  was  f 
human  brotherho< 
cently  fitted  to  i 

Emily  had  fir 
frankly  given 
again  addres^ 
all,"  she  sai 

Jane  tor 
you  are  fi 

David 
desiraV 


B 

lou( 
quiv 
be  wi 

In  t 
"They 

"Did 


: 


uch 

bftened. 
enediction. 
er  arms  she  had 
sson  of 


DUST  AND  LIGHT  359 

III 

"The  Duke  de  Clopin's  dead." 

Emily  was  engaged  in  fitting  a  key  in  the  lock  of  her 
apartment  door.  At  David's  announcement  she  barely 
looked  up.  "Is  he?  You  mean  that  friend  of  Mrs. 

Dench's?" 

i 

"Yes.  They're  the  people  she's  been  staying  with  since 
Jane's  marriage." 

The  lock  yielded.  "Things  will  be  in  a  mess,  you  know 
—  I  doubt,  even,  if  I  can  give  you  tea." 

David  didn't  want  tea. 

The  parlor  was  covered  with  fine,  light  dust.  To  get 
rid  of  the  close  smell  of  it  they  opened  the  windows,  and 
it  wasn't  until  this  task  was  completed  that  Emily  evinced 
any  further  interest  in  Mrs.  Dench's  friend.  "How  did 
he  die?" 

"He  was  drowned,  in  bathing,  near  his  villa  in  Cyprus." 

"The  Mediterranean  claimed  her  own  ? " 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

The  question  was  ignored.     "  How  did  you  hear  ?  " 

"How  should  I,  but  from  Mrs.  Dench  ?" 

"Of  course,  I  forgot.  Come,  are  you  afraid  of  getting 
your  beautiful  clothes  spoiled  if  you  sit  down?" 

"It's  not  as  bad  as  that." 

Emily  looked  about  her.  "It's  pretty  bad.  I  shouldn't 
have  left  it  so  long.  There  isn't  a  thing  here  that 
Jane  would  thank  me  for  introducing  into  her  spotless 
place." 

"Why,  the  little  glass  case  I  know  she'd  love,  and  besides, 
you're  not  sworn  to  furnish  Jane's  house  for  her." 


360  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"It's  not  a  question  of  being  sworn." 

"Of  course  not,  it's  a  pleasure."  David's  tone  changed. 
"You're  not  impressed  with  my  news." 

"Well,  you  see,  never  having  known  the  duke  — " 

"But  you've  often  heard  of  him." 

"  Oh,  I've  heard  of  him.  I  always  had  the  impression  of  a 
figure  vaguely  pathetic." 

"Yes,  I  know.  And  yet  I  envied  him  with  all  my  heart. 
His  life  was  so  simple;  his  codes  and  his  problems  pointed 
all  one  way;  his  house  wasn't  divided  against  itself  — " 

"Like  yours?" 

"  Yes  —  by  Jove !  —  like  mine ! " 

Emily  had  no  comment  to  offer,  and  David  didn't  elabo 
rate  his  theme.  He  watched  a  ray  from  the  afternoon  sun 
as  it  played  with  the  reddish  wood  of  the  writing-table. 
Emily  waited.  He  picked  up  the  veil  which  she  had  un 
pinned  from  her  hat  and  passed  it  and  repassed  it  through 
his  fingers. 

The  action  seemed  to  open  the  flood-gates  of  his  speech : 
"Do  you  remember  once,  a  long  time  ago  —  before  you 
went  to  Ocean  City  —  before  you  were  ill  —  a  snowy  night 
when  you  dined  with  us  and  I  afterwards  put  you  into  your 
cab  and  we  stood  there  in  the  snow,  talking? " 

"Quite  vividly." 

"  You  do  ?  —  It  was  the  first  time,  I  know,  that  I  saw  you 
as  anything  but  one  of  my  father's  celebrities.  He  finds  a 
celebrity  in  every  bush.  Our  place  at  Long  Head  —  I  may 
go  down  there  to-night  —  is  fairly  overrun  with  them.  You 
see,  I'm  making  a  particularly  pretty  speech  —  you're  sure 
you  don't  mind?"  Emily  was  sure.  David  went  on: 
"Father's  celebrities  are  as  citizens  sometimes  not  so  desir- 


DUST  AND  LIGHT  361 

able.  But  he  has  his  illusion.  And  it  came  to  me  that 
night  that  with  you  it  wasn't  an  illusion;  you  weren't  that 
sort;  you  had  an  entity  of  your  own  which  was  in  itself 
thoroughly  worth  while.  Generally,  I  feel  rather  sorry  for 
father's  celebrities;  he  doesn't  often  happen  on  the  real 
ones  —  I'm  not  forgetting  it  was  I  who  introduced  him  to 
you  —  and  they  circle  about  in  the  light  for  a  brief  space  and 
then  sink  back  into  their  obscurity.  But  you  —  you 
wouldn't ;  and  besides,  you  strangely  turned  the  tables  by 
being  sorry  for  me  !  I've  wondered,  since,  exactly  how  sorry 
you  were  —  or  are." 

Emily  met  his  eagerness.  "I'm  less  sorry  than  I  was, 
I  think.  You're  less  helpless." 

"Did  I  strike  you  as  helpless  then?" 

"For  a  moment,  I  remember,  I  should  have  liked  to 
protect  you  —  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  from  what — " 

"Do  you  remember  asking  me  not  to  go 'back  to  the 
Mediterranean?" 

"Yes,  and  it  must  have  seemed  to  you  a  strange 
request.  I  meant  it  half  in  laughter." 

"Yes,  I  know,  you  couldn't  have  meant  it  in  anything 
else ;  but  it's  the  other  half  of  your  meaning  we're  dealing 
with  to-day."  He  had  crumpled  her  veil  hopelessly,  and 
he  laid  it  back  on  the  sofa  between  them. 

She  didn't  understand,  and  he  told  her,  as  if  that  made  all 
things  clear,  that  he  had  in  his  pocket  a  letter  from  Mrs. 
Dench. 

"  The  one  about  the  duke's  death  ?  It's  curious  that  Jane 
hadn't  heard." 

"Yes,  Parrish  would  have  seen  it  in  the  paper." 

"Heard  from  her  mother  — " 


362  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

"  Her  mother  hasn't  written  to  her.  She's  waiting  till  her 
plans  are  more  settled." 

"  It  alters  her  plans  ?    I  didn't  know." 

"Why,  yes,  of  course.  The  duchess  has  very  generously 
asked  her  to  stay  on  indefinitely ;  but  she  couldn't  do  that 
—  it  wouldn't  be  dignified." 

Emily  acquiesced.  She  was  pretending  to  a  greater 
clearness  than  she  felt.  It  was  all  a  complication  she 
would  have  designated  as  '  foreign '  and  let  go  at  that ;  but 
it  seemed,  in  David's  eyes,  to  be  in  some  way  concerned  with 
herself.  She  wished  to  be  shown  the  connecting  link: 
"What  have  I  to  do  with  the  duke's  death  and  Mrs.  Bench's 
plans  and  the  extreme  generosity  of  the  duchess?  Mrs. 
Bench  is  not  planning  a  visit  to  Hornmouth  ?  Because  for 
that  she'd  have  to  answer  to  Cousin  Laura,  and  as  you 
say  she's  quarrelled  with  Ralph  — " 

Emily's  tone  was  lively,  but  Bavid's  was  deadly  serious. 
"  You  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  duke's  death  or  his  wife's 
generosity,  but  with  Mrs.  Bench's  plans  I'm  cherishing  the 
hope  that  you'll  have  a  great  deal  —  in  fact,  that  you'll 
spoil  them  utterly." 

"My  dear!— " 

"When  you  asked  me  not  to  go  back  to  the  Mediterranean, 
as  you  say,  it  was  half  in  laughter.  You  didn't  know  what 
you  were  asking;  you  didn't  know  me.  You  were  vaguely 
sorry  for  my  youth's  so  evidently  having  had  a  hard  time  of 
it ;  but  where  I  went  couldn't  have  very  deeply  concerned 
you.  Now,  you  know  me ;  you've  seemed  to  like  me  —  at 
least,  if  you  haven't,  I  can't  imagine  why,  during  the  past 
year,  you've  put  up  with  me  so  much  —  why,  metaphori 
cally  speaking,  you've  always  let  me  crumple  your  veil. 


DUST  AND   LIGHT  363 

If  it  weren't  that  the  sense  of  adventure  was  in  us  both 
worn  a  little  thin,  I  might,  you  know,  have  crumpled  it ... 
It  is  said  that  the  burnt  child  dreads  the  fire,  which  is  non 
sense,  for  it's  only  the  burnt  child  who  doesn't  dread  it; 
he's  learned  —  with  infinite  pains  —  that  he's  its  master. 
And  besides,  you  like  me  —  I  can  see  that  —  but  with  you 
it's  not  been  a  question  of  fire,  for  you're  not  in  the  least  in 
love  with  me." 

"No,  not  now.  Which  only  shows,  that  I'm  not  blown 
by  every  passing  breeze." 

"  Do  you  call  me  a  passing  breeze  ?  "  asked  David.  "  But 
you  have  kept  your  head.  I  want  you  to  lose  it  now." 

Again  she  exclaimed. 

"Ah,  yes  —  you  can  call  me  my  dear  forever;  but  that 
doesn't  mean  that  you'll  do  what  I  ask." 

Emily's  gaze  was  held  by  a  special  flower  in  the  brightly 
patterned  chintz  cover  of  a  chair  across  the  room.  "What 
is  it  that  you  ask?" 

"Marry  me." 

She  looked  at  him  in  utter,  blank  amazement.  "You 
call  that  losing  my  head  ?  I  should  say,  rather,  it  was  you 
who'd  lost  yours !" 

"Then  you  won't?" 

"I  can't  think  that  you  mean  what  you  say.  It's  some 
ghastly  notion  of  humor  — " 

But  David  showed  no  gleam  of  it.  "Why  is  it  so  impos 
sible?" 

"What  has  it  to  do  with  the  Mediterranean  ?" 

"It  would  mean  that  I  shouldn't  go  back  there." 

"Ah  —  I  see.    It's  Mrs.  Dench's  plan  that  you  should." 

"Mrs.  Dench  has  done  me  the  honor  to  reconsider  an  offer 


364  OTHER  PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

of  marriage  which  I  made  to  her  almost  at  the  outset  of  our 
acquaintance." 

"If  you're  engaged  to  Mrs.  Dench — " 

"  But  I'm  nothing  of  the  sort !  Since  I  asked  her  to  marry 
me  —  and  she  refused  me,  I  tell  you,  point-blank,  she 
laughed  me  to  scorn  —  I  grew  to  recognize  my  error  — 
since  I  asked  her  to  marry  me,  the  circumstances  are  utterly 
changed." 

"Yes,"  said  Emily,  "so  I've  come  to  see.  I  didn't  at 
first  —  I  was  stupid  —  I  thought  it  was  Ralph ;  but  it 's  all 
come  clear  —  why  you  couldn't  marry  Jane  —  why  you 
were  at  Ocean  City  —  everything  —  I've  fitted  together 
all  the  pieces  —  " 

David  Barlow's  only  answer  was  a  brow  shot  with  pain. 
"  I  want  to  assure  you,"  he  said  at  last,  "  that  she  has  no  hold 
on  me  whatever!" 

"You  mean  she  has  no  definite  right?" 

"No  right  —  no  claim  —  no  power  — " 

"If  she  has  none,  you  surely  don't  need  me  as  a  little 
picket  fence  to  keep  her  out ;  and  against  the  kind  of  right 
you  prove  she  has,  I  should  be  a  magnificent  protection ! 
You  say  she  can't  hold  you  —  you  prove  that  she  does  — " 

"It's  a  strange  way  of  proving  it,  to  ask  another  woman 
to  marry  me." 

"Why  do  you  have  to  marry?" 

"Why  can't  things  go  on  as  they  were  before?  Because 
they  can't.  Because  I've  a  life  and  a  career  and  a  duty  to 
myself,  and  a  duty  to  my  mother  and  father  and  the  fortune 
that  will  some  day  be  mine." 

"And  what  would  happen  to  all  that  if  you  married  Mrs. 
Dench?" 


DUST   AND   LIGHT  365 

"Not  as  much,  you  know,  as  if  I  didn't  marry  her." 

"Oh,  my  dear,  a  great  deal  more!  You're  weak  — 
weak  !"  Emily  rose.  The  young  man  had  never  appeared 
to  her  in  a  less  complimentary  light.  "And  what  would 
happen  to  all  that,"  she  asked,  "if  you  married  me  ?" 

"Nothing  whatever." 

He  was  still  seated,  and  she  put  a  hand  on  his  shoulder. 
"  If  you  think  so,  it  shows  you  don't  know.  You  want  to  do 
the  best  you  can  with  the  bad  start  you've  made  —  you 
have  ambitions  —  so  you  come  to  a  little  invalid,  a  good  half- 
dozen  years  your  senior,  who  has  —  strangely  —  ambitions 
of  her  own !  Why,  the  kind  of  assistance  I  could  give  you 
you're  not  strong  enough  to  stand  up  against." 

David's  gloom  turned  to  jest.  "  The  way  you  sum  it  up, 
who  would  be?" 

"  Ralph  Parrish." 

"Then  who  would  have  married  Jane?" 

"You." 

"And  Mrs.  Bench—" 

Emily  thought  hard.  "  Perhaps  the  duke  shouldn't  have 
been  drowned." 

David  cast  at  her  the  accusation  to  which  Ralph  Parrish 
—  with  more  cause  —  had  once  treated  Mrs.  Dench, 
"  You're  the  most  abominable  woman  I've  ever  seen ! " 

"  If  the  things  I  say  amuse  your  vitiated  taste  — " 

He  replied  to  this  by  getting  to  his  feet  and  taking  the 
hand  that  had  caressed  him  in  both  his  own.  "I  can't 
see  why  you  won't  marry  me.  You'd  have  advantages." 

"  Yes,  the  advantages  would  all  be  on  my  side ;  and  if  you 
don't  mind,  why  should  I ?" 

"  I  don't  say  that ;  but  why  should  you  mind  ?    If  you're 


366  OTHER  PEOPLE'S   HOUSES 

the  most  abominable  woman  I've  ever  seen,  you're  also  the 
most  superbly  selfish.  It's  one  of  the  things  I've  liked  you 
for—" 

"We  have  met  on  an  equality.  Though  I  once  told  Mrs. 
Dench  that  you  were  the  least  selfish  man  I'd  ever  seen. 
That  was  before  I  knew  you." 

"And  what  did  Mrs.  Dench  say?" 

"She  agreed  with  me  thoroughly.  But  I  think  you 
weren't  selfish  with  Mrs.  Dench  —  you  couldn't  be  —  her 
own  selfishness  prevented." 

"  Oh,  she  was  colossal !" 

"I  believe  you're  afraid  of  her." 

"Of  course  I'm  afraid  of  her."  David  Barlow  threw 
back  his  slim  hawk's  head.  "I'm  afraid  to  death  of  her!" 

"It's  under  the  shadow  of  her  sword,  then,  that  you've 
made  love  to  me?" 

"You  haven't  the  right  to  be  jealous;  you  haven't  yet 
said  you'd  marry  me.  You  haven't  yet  even  told  me  why 
you  haven't  said  it." 

Emily  went  back  to  the  sofa;  David  followed  her.  The 
ray  from  the  afternoon  sun  had  shifted  its  allegiance  from 
the  reddish  wood  of  the  writing-table  to  a  yellow  stripe  in 
the  wall-paper. 

"No,  I'm  not  jealous.  As  you  say,  I  haven't  the  right. 
Mrs.  Dench  possesses  you  far  too  completely  —  whatever 
right  there  is,  is  hers.  It  may  be  one  not  recognized  by 
any  of  your  courts  of  law ;  but  it's  as  real  —  why,  David, 
her  right  in  you  is  the  only  real  thing  about  you,  the  only 
real  thing  you  have  left !" 

"  I  haven't  seemed  to  you  real  ?  " 

"  No  —  not  even  when  you've  held  my  hand  and  crumpled 


DUST   AND   LIGHT  367 

my  veil  and  given  me  your  light  fires  to  play  with.  You  see, 
with  all  that,  I've  got  to  know  you,  and  it's  only  since  I've 
known  you  that  I've  known  how  little  reality  you  had. 
In  those  first  days  at  Ocean  City  I  rather  retarded  my  con 
valescence  by  imagining  myself  in  love  with  you.  I 
bothered  with  the  mystery  of  your  immortal  soul.  I  don't 
know  how  much  soul  you  had  when  you  started  out,  but 
you've  no  more  now  than  a  puppet  on  a  string !" 

"Mrs.  Bench  has  that,  too?" 

"  Every  scrap.  She  caught  you  at  the  right  moment,  and 
she  neatly  pithed  you.  When  I  found  I  didn't  love  you, 
I  thought  it  was  merely  because  I  loved  some  one  else  very 
much  more  — " 

"Ralph  Parrish?" 

"Yes,  Ralph  Parrish.  But  he  married  Jane.  He 
married  Jane,  and  Mrs.  Dench  went  back  whence  she  had 
come.  You  and  I  liked  each  other  —  we've  always  done 
that  —  and  it  seemed  the  logical,  the  agreeable  thing, 
that  we  should  in  a  measure  console  each  other.  And 
how  have  we  succeeded?  It's  been  shadow  shadowing 
shadow,  the  blind  leading  the  blind  — " 

"Then  you  aren't  real,  either?"  David  was  amused 
through  his  gravity. 

"  But  I  never  was  !  That's  why  I  have  so  much  need  of  it 
in  other  people.  I've  longed  for  the  tangible,  the  normal 
things;  but  I'm  not  so  deceived  that  I  think  I  should  get 
them  by  marrying  you." 

"  Ah  —  you'd  get  something  very  much  better.  You've 
often  talked  of  the  undiscovered  country.  We'd  explore 
together  any  country  you  like  — " 

But  Emily  cut  him  short.    "We'd  be  two  restless  spirits 


368  OTHER    PEOPLE'S  HOUSES 

wandering  together  the  bright  slopes  of  eternity  —  phan 
toms  pursuing  a  phantom  joy  — " 

"We'd  have  our  careers  —  our  ambitions." 

"We'd  have  them  without  that." 

"You  mean  you'd  have  yours,"  said  David.  "You've 
found  out  the  worst  —  I'm  a  selfish  phantom  who's  given 
his  best  to  another  woman  —  and  yet  you  like  me.  I  can't 
see  why,  then  — " 

"You  can't  see  why,  on  the  strength  of  my  liking,  I 
shouldn't  do  what  you  ask  ?  I  might,  if  you  offered  me  the 
David  Barlow  that  Jane  saw  sitting  a  little  apart  in  the  bow 
of  the  ship's  tender,  his  dark  head  bared  to  the  sun.  But 
that  David  Barlow  —  what  there  is  left  of  him  —  it  isn't 
within  your  power  to  offer  me.  He  belongs  to  Mrs.  Dench." 

"  You  seem  to  think  she's  made  a  thorough  job  of  it !" 

"  Oh  —  she  has  —  and  I  know  what  I'm  saying,  for  I 
hope  I  shan't  be  misunderstood  when  I  tell  you  that  Ralph 
Parrish  has  made  of  me  a  job  almost  as  thorough." 

"Then  by  that  same  token  do  you  belong  to  him?" 

"Part  of  me." 

"  And  the  other  part  ?    That  seems  my  chance." 

"  Oh,  no,  that's  the  chance  of '  Mrs.  Dallowfield's '  suc 
cessor." 

"Then  you  won't  marry  me?" 

"  You're  fresh  from  the  house  near  Lexington  Avenue,  and 
you  ask  me  that?  Imagine  you  and  me  .  .  ." 

"We  never  could  emulate  them.  But  you  can't  expect 
all  the  marriages  to  be  like  Jane's  and  Ralph's.  They're, 
as  you  say,  so  damnably  normal.  They're  so  young." 

"But,  good  heavens!  —  aren't  you  young?  Younger 
than  Ralph?" 


DUST    AND  LIGHT  369 

"  Yes,"  David  smiled,  "  but  I've  paid  for  my  sins." 

"  You  have,  haven't  you  ?  It  seems  unfair  that  Ralph 
Parrish  shouldn't  have  paid  for  his." 

"  Ah  —  Ralph's  sins  haven't  lost  him  his  immortal  soul !" 

"No,"  said  his  cousin,  "and  it's  not  because  he  had  no 
soul  to  lose.  But  somehow  his  sins  didn't  touch  his  soul  — 
they  were  sins  of  the  flesh  — " 

David  looked  away.     "Mine  have  been  of  the  flesh." 

"  Yours  —  yours  have  been  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  soul  and 
of  the  mind.  You're  marked  and  scarred  —  and  for  you 
the  wages  are  — " 

"Not  death?"  David  hoped. 

"  No,  not  death  —  the  Mediterranean." 

He  turned  from  her,  his  youth  all  white  and  drawn.  "  I 
believe  you're  right." 

She  picked  up  her  crumpled  veil.  "For  the  duke  they 
seem  to  have  been  both.  The  luck's  on  your  side." 

"  Oh  —  the  luck  !  — "     He  made  to  her  no  final  appeal. 

Emily  looked  about  her  at  her  apartment  in  the  late 
thirties,  filled  with  dust  and  glaring  light,  and  she  presently 
heard  the  door  shut  on  what  was,  in  a  sense,  the  one  real 
opportunity  of  her  life. 


THE    END. 


2B 


WILLIAM   ALLEN   WHITER 
A  Certain  Rich  Man 


Cloth,  $1.30  net 


"  It  pulsates  with  humor,  interest,  passionate  love,  adventures,  pathos  — 
every  page  is  woven  with  threads  of  human  nature,  life  as  we  know  it, 
life  as  it  is,  and  above  it  all  a  spirit  of  righteousness,  true  piety,  and 
heroic  patriotism.  These  inspire  the  author's  genius  and  fine  literary 
quality,  thrilling  the  reader  with  tenderest  emotion,  and  holding  to  the 
end  his  unflagging,  absorbing  interest."  —  The  Public  Ledger,  Phila 
delphia. 

"  Mr.  White  has  written  a  big  and  satisfying  book  made  up  of  the  ele 
ments  of  American  life  as  we  know  them  —  the  familiar  humor,  sorrows, 
ambitions,  crimes,  sacrifices  —  revealed  to  us  with  peculiar  freshness  and 
vigor  in  the  multitude  of  human  actions  and  by  the  crowd  of  delightful 
people  who  fill  his  four-hundred  odd  pages.  ...  It  deserves  a  high 
place  among  the  novels  that  deal  with  American  life.  No  recent  Ameri 
can  novel  save  one  has  sought  to  cover  so  broad  a  canvas,  or  has  created 
so  strong  an  impression  of  ambition  and  of  sincerity."  —  Chicago  Evening 
Post. 

"The  great  fictional  expression  of  this  mighty  Twentieth  Century  altruis 
tic  movement  is  sure  to  be  something  in  kind  and  in  degree  akin  to  Mr. 
White's  '  A  Certain  Rich  Man.'  "  —  Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle. 

"An  American  novel,  home-grown  in  home  soil,  vital  with  homely 
American  motives,  and  fragrant  with  homely  American  memories,  Mr. 
White  has  certainly  achieved."  —  New  York  Times. 


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CHARLES    MAJOR'S 

A  Gentle  Knight  of  Old  Brandenburg 

Illustrated,  cloth ,  12 mo,  $1.50  net 

Mr.  Major  has  selected  a  period  to  the  romance  of  which  other  historical 
novelists  have  been  singularly  blind.  The  boyhood  of  Frederick  the 
Great  and  the  strange  wooing  of  his  charming  sister  Wilhelmina  have 
afforded  a  theme,  rich  in  its  revelation  of  human  nature  and  full  of 
romantic  situations. 

MABEL    OSGOOD   WRIGHT'S 
Poppea  of  the  Post  Office 

Cloth,  i2tno,  $1.50  net 

"  A  rainbow  romance,  .  .  .  tender  yet  bracing,  cheerily  stimulating  .  .  . 
its  genial  entirety  refreshes  like  a  cooling  shower."  —  Chicago  Record 
Herald. 

"There  cannot  be  too  many  of  these  books  by  'Barbara.'  Mrs.  Wright 
knows  good  American  stock  through  and  through  and  presents  it  with 
effective  simplicity."  —  Boston  Advertiser. 

FRANK   DANBY'S 
Sebastian 

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Whenever  a  father's  ideals  conflict  with  a  mother's  hopes  for  the  son  of 
their  dreams,  you  meet  the  currents  underlying  the  plot  of  "  Sebastian." 
Its  author's  skill  in  making  vividly  real  the  types  and  conditions  of  London 
has  never  been  shown  to  better  advantage. 

EDEN    PHILLPOTTS' 
The  Three  Brothers 

Cloth,  izmo,  $s.jo  net 

" '  The  Three  Brothers '  seems  to  us  the  best  yet  of  the  long  series  of  these 
remarkable  Dartmoor  tales.  If  Shakespeare  had  written  novels  we  can 
think  that  some  of  his  pages  would  have  been  like  some  of  these.  Here 
certainly  is  language,  turn  of  humor,  philosophical  play,  vigor  of  incident, 
such  as  might  have  come  straight  from  Elizabeth's  day.  .  .  .  The  book 
is  full  of  a  very  moving  interest  and  is  agreeable  and  beautiful."  —  The 
New  York  Sun. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

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DATE  DUE 


GAYLORD 


INTEO  IN  U.S.A. 


UC  SOUTH 


A    001413979    4 


